On December 9, 2025, Glenn Oztemel, a former oil and gas trader in Connecticut, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for his role in a bribery and money laundering scheme involving Brazilian government officials. Oztemel was also fined $300,000 for his role in the scheme. He was convicted by a federal jury in September 2024 for allegedly paying more than $1 million in bribes to officials at Brazil’s state-owned oil and gas company Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (“Petrobras”). According to federal prosecutors, between 2010 and 2018, Oztemel conspired with his brother Gary and Eduardo Innecco, a third-party intermediary, to pay bribes to Petrobras officials in order to secure business for Arcadia Fuels Ltd. and Freepoint Commodities LLC, two companies where he worked. Specifically, Oztemel was convicted of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), conspiracy to commit money laundering, three counts of violating the FCPA, and two counts of money laundering for his role in the scheme.
At trial, the DOJ introduced evidence that Oztemel and his co-conspirators caused Arcadia and Freepoint to make corrupt payments to Innecco. The payments were disguised as consulting fees and commissions, and were made with the understanding that Innecco would pay a portion of the funds to Petrobras officials, including Rodrigo Berkowitz, who formerly worked as a trader for Petrobras’s Texas-based subsidiary Petrobras America Inc. In exchange for these payments, Oztemel allegedly received proprietary information from Petrobras, including competitors’ bid amounts and confidential pricing information that could help Arcadia and Freepoint secure lucrative fuel oil contracts with Petrobras.
In an effort to conceal the scheme, the co-conspirators allegedly used their personal email accounts, encrypted messaging applications, and disposable phones to communicate about the scheme. They also allegedly used fictitious names like “Spencer Kazisnaf” and “Nikita Maksimov” and used coded language such as “breakfast” and “freight deviation” to refer to bribe payments.
In February 2023, the DOJ unsealed an indictment that charged Innecco and Oztemel for their roles in the bribery and laundering scheme, and, in August 2023, a grand jury indicted Innecco, Oztemel, and his brother Gary pursuant to a superseding indictment that included FCPA violations. In June 2024, Gary Oztemel pleaded guilty to count nine of the superseding indictment (monetary transactions involving criminally derived property). He was sentenced in November 2024 to a two-year term of probation and ordered to pay a $8,774 fine and forfeit $301,575 for his role in the scheme. On December 15, 2025, federal prosecutors dismissed all charges against Innecco, who died in October 2025 after fleeing to Brazil to avoid being extradited to the United States to face these charges.
In February 2019, Berkowitz pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering in a related case filed in the Eastern District of New York. Berkowitz still awaits sentencing for his role in the scheme. In a related matter, Freepoint entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (“DPA”) with federal prosecutors in December 2023. As part of that settlement, the company admitted to paying bribes to Brazilian government officials and agreed to pay more than $98 million in criminal penalties and forfeiture to resolve FCPA-related charges. In December 2023, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission also ordered Freepoint to pay a $91 million civil monetary penalty in connection with its role in the scheme, a payment that was reduced by offsets that took into consideration payments made to the DOJ.
DOJ Press Release | Superseding Indictment | Gary Otzemel Plea Agreement | Government’s Motion to Dismiss Case Against Innecco | Berkowitz Guilty Plea