On July 10, 2026, Abraham Cigarroa Cervantes, the former finance director for Stericycle Inc.’s Latin America division, was sentenced in the Southern District of Florida to time served, avoiding prison time for his alleged role in an international bribery scheme. At the sentencing hearing, he was also ordered to pay a $225,000 fine. Cigarroa had previously pled guilty to conspiring to pay bribes to Mexican government officials in order to win and retain waste-management contracts for Stericycle between 2011 and 2016.
Cigarroa, a Mexican citizen who, according to the indictment, also served on Stericycle’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Compliance Management Steering Committee, was arrested in Argentina and extradited to the United States on April 23, 2026, after being charged in March 2024 with one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions and one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA’s accounting provisions. On April 24, 2026, he pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. However, on May 21, 2026, he changed his plea to guilty to conspiracy to violate the FCPA anti-bribery provisions as part of a plea agreement reached with federal prosecutors. According to the factual proffer that accompanied the plea agreement, Cigarroa conspired with other Stericycle employees and agents to pay bribes to officials in Mexico, including creating tracking spreadsheets for the bribe payments, and was aware of bribes to be paid to officials in Brazil and Argentina.
In 2022, Stericycle separately resolved parallel U.S. and Brazilian bribery investigations and agreed to pay more than $84 million, including a $52.5 million criminal penalty under a three-year deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice and nearly $28.2 million in disgorgement and prejudgment interest to the Securities and Exchange Commission, with both agencies agreeing to offset portions of the penalties for payments made to Brazilian authorities. Similarly, Mauricio Gomez Baez, who served as Stericycle LATAM’s senior vice president, pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions as part of the same alleged scheme; he was sentenced on June 21, 2024, to seven months in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 criminal fine.
Judgment | Docket Minute Entries | Plea Agreement | Factual Proffer