(NewsNation) — A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida has indicted a former finance director of Stericycle Inc.‘s Latin America division, charging him with participating in a scheme to pay more than $10 million in bribes to foreign officials in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
Abraham Cigarroa Cervantes, 51, of Mexico, and others allegedly orchestrated hundreds of bribe payments from 2011 to 2016, court documents reveal. The bribes were purportedly made to government officials to secure business contracts and advantages for Stericycle, a U.S. waste management company.
Employees at Stericycle’s offices in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina allegedly facilitated the bribe payments, often in cash, calculated as a percentage of contract payments from government clients, according to the Department of Justice.
Cigarroa and his co-conspirators allegedly tracked these payments through spreadsheets, using code words and euphemisms to describe them. To conceal the illicit transactions, false records were reportedly maintained, causing Stericycle to inaccurately record bribe payments as legitimate expenses.
Cigarroa is charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act’s anti-bribery provisions and conspiracy to violate its books and records provisions, according to the Department of Justice.
If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on each count.
In April 2022, Stericycle admitted to bribing officials in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina in violation of the FCPA. As part of a deferred prosecution agreement, Stericycle agreed to pay more than $84 million.