As the US continues to maintain a tight grip over the Venezuelan oil, reports are emerging that the Trump administration awarded oil sale contracts to firms that were previously prosecuted for bribery schemes
As the United States continues to maintain a tight
grip over the Venezuelan oil, reports are emerging that officials from the Trump administration awarded oil sale contracts to firms that were previously prosecuted for bribery schemes. According to the court documents obtained by The Washington Post, both the giants that inked an opaque deal with the Trump administration have been accused of bribery schemes involving oil sales elsewhere.
Earlier in January, the Trump administration granted confidential licenses to
Vitol and
Trafigura to sell Venezuelan oil. The deal became controversial since it entailed little independent oversight. Interestingly, the licenses came a year after the Trump administration gutted the foreign corrupt practices unit of the
Justice Department, which brought charges against the two firms back in 2020 and 2024.
The licenses were granted to the oil giants as a part of an energy deal the United States pushed Venezuela to accept after ousting its autocratic president,
Nicolás Maduro, in a military raid on January 3. The deal now allows both Vitol and Trafigura to buy tens of millions of barrels of oil in Venezuelan reserves that had been blocked in the past due to American sanctions.
What the court documents say
According to a separate public record, in 2024, a senior trader at Vitol donated $6 million to political committees supporting Trump during the presidential election campaign. When the information resurfaced, Vitol stressed that the donations were made by the individual and not the company.
Meanwhile, court records obtained by The Washington Post paint a colourful and elaborate picture of the bribery scheme. The involved code words, such as “shoes” and “coffee,” shell entities, and fake contracts and invoices with Mexican and Ecuadorian state oil companies.
The case in question involved a Vitol trader who was convicted of bribery in 2024, four years after the company paid $135 million in criminal penalties to resolve accusations that it bribed officials in Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil. Trafigura, on the other hand, was accused of plotting with shell companies and offshore accounts to conceal a bribery scheme that helped net it $61 million in profits.
According to a 2024 federal plea agreement, the company admitted its guilt and agreed to fines and forfeitures totalling $126 million. Interestingly, this is just one of the several past allegations against the company. Last year, the firm was convicted of corruption in Switzerland on charges of having bribed an Angolan official for oil contracts. The company is appealing in the case.
How the companies are responding
In an email statement to The Washington Post, Vitol said that it has “enhanced” its anti-corruption compliance procedures and controls in accordance with its 2020 federal deferred prosecution agreement, resulting in the charges being dropped. “Vitol operates its business in compliance with all relevant laws and regulations,” the company wrote. “Any suggestion otherwise is incorrect.”
Trafigura, on the other hand, did not respond to detailed questions. In a statement earlier this month, the company said it is helping facilitate the sale of Venezuelan oil “at the request of the US government.”
Meanwhile, officials from the Trump administration said that Vitol and Trafigura — among the three largest oil trading firms in the world — are some of the only ones with the resources and expertise to execute the complicated trades quickly. The officials pointed out that the firm paid for $500 million of Venezuelan oil up-front and that the proceeds have already made their way to Venezuelan banks, where they will be used to stabilise the economy and address citizens’ basic needs.
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