Hijacked: How a US Entrepreneur Was Robbed by Brazil’s Fuel Mafia and the Billion Dollar Lawsuit That Could Break the Silence


Hijacked: How a U S Entrepreneur Was Robbed by Brazil’s Fuel Mafia and the Billion Dollar Lawsuit That Could Break the Silence

By John Kaweske
Filed in SDNY Federal Court – RICO Case No. 25 CV 6588

Prologue: A Green Vision in a Corrupt Land

In 2011, I launched a renewable energy company in Brazil — Bio Clean Energy S A — fueled by a vision: patented biodiesel technology, government contracts, and a belief that Brazil’s growing energy sector could be both profitable and ethical.

By 2015, we had a 20 million dollar biodiesel plant, contracts with Petrobras, a promising relationship with Banco Bradesco, and a fully operational team.

Then, everything changed.

Our plant was illegally taken, our accounts hijacked, and our board fraudulently restructured using forged documents. The perpetrators? A trio of power players: Tricon Energy, Banco Bradesco, and their high powered law firm in Brazil.

This is the story of a corporate coup masked as a business transaction, enforced by a silent judiciary, and now the subject of a one billion dollar racketeering lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York.

Chapter One: The Warning That Tricon Ignored

As a supplier of methanol, Tricon Energy (owner Brazilian business man: Ignacio "Nacho" Torres), This company is owned by a Brazilian National who made his headquarters in the USA). Tricon had a clear and documented restriction: no sales or deliveries to any third parties without written approval signed by me personally. They were notified:

  • Via FedEx to their headquarters

  • Via multiple emails to U S executives and Brazilian contacts

  • Via official legal notifications in Brazil

Despite these clear directives, Tricon disregarded every communication. Instead, they began delivering methanol to unauthorized recipients — and then, in a move that defies corporate norms and raises red flags of money laundering — received cash payments across four distant Banco Bradesco branches, none of which were tied to our company's registered location.

🔎 “The coordination of this fraud was surgical and criminal. Tricon was notified repeatedly. Banco Bradesco accepted unverified cash deposits across distant branches. This was not negligence. This was a partnership in a criminal enterprise.”
— Dr Rafael Harb, Attorney for John Kaweske

Chapter Two: The Mafia Storms the Plant

In the summer of 2015, armed men arrived at our factory gates. These were not government officials. They were hired agents, part of a coordinated effort to remove us from the property.

Our workers were forced out, company computers and records were seized, and the board of directors was “restructured” overnight using falsified documents that claimed I had stepped down voluntarily.

I had not.

There was no meeting. No vote. No consent.

The invasion was criminal. The paperwork was forged.

And yet, when we took this to court, no judge stopped them.

Chapter Three: Banco Bradesco's Silent Role

If Tricon pulled the trigger, Banco Bradesco loaded the gun.

When Tricon deposited hundreds of thousands of reais in cash into our account at distant branches in Jundiaí, Guarulhos, and other cities outside of our plant's location, red flags should have triggered immediate anti money laundering scrutiny.

Instead, Bradesco accepted the deposits without question.

No internal bank audit.
No fraud alert.
No call to us, the rightful account owners.

To make matters worse, the bank’s own internal systems later verified that our board replacement was based on forged signatures yet Bradesco continued to process account changes and facilitate asset transfers as if everything was legitimate.

Chapter Four: The Forty Eight Hour Judicial Hit Job

Our legal team, led by Dr Rafael Harb, acted swiftly. We filed a request for an oral hearing, as guaranteed by Article 937 of the Brazilian Constitution.

That request was illegally denied.

Within forty eight hours, without oral argument and without due process, a three judge panel ruled against us. The judges, Ricardo Negrão, Viviani Nicolau, and Marcos Pimentel Tamassia ignored procedural rights, ignored the evidence of forgery, and signed off on the theft of our company.

🧑‍⚖️ “The speed and silence of this decision was shocking. We had a right to be heard. We were denied that right and worse, the judges protected the fraud.”
- Dr Rafael Harb

Chapter Five: Methanol Diversion, Bribes, and the Fuel Mafia

The scheme goes deeper than a single plant.

Tricon’s behavior suggests a long running fuel diversion operation, where methanol — sometimes cheaper than ethanol is mixed and sold to Brazilian gas stations under the radar. These activities:

  • Avoided tax obligations

  • Violated fuel purity laws

  • Leveraged shell company purchasers

  • Relied on cash based banking behavior from Bradesco

If this had happened in the United States, executives would be in jail. But in Brazil, Tricon, Bradesco, and their legal team continued to operate without scrutiny emboldened by silence.

Chapter Six: Seven Years of Stonewalling

From 2016 through 2023, I pursued every possible resolution:

  • Settlement talks

  • Documented correspondence

  • Requests for arbitration

  • Direct offers of mediated negotiation

We were ignored. Mocked. Dismissed.

Even now, after filing a Federal racketeering lawsuit in the U S, the parties have shown no remorse, no cooperation, and no intention to make amends.

They believe they are untouchable.

Chapter Seven: The U S Fights Back: RICO Case No 25 CV 6588

In August 2025, we filed a formal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, alleging:

  • Racketeering and conspiracy

  • Corporate fraud and forgery

  • Money laundering

  • Intellectual property theft and asset stripping

  • Human rights violations under international law

The complaint is over one hundred pages with hundreds of pages of exhibits, including:

  • Forged board resolutions

  • Emails to Tricon ignored for weeks

  • Bradesco deposit records

  • Timeline of the illegal takeover

  • Violations of Brazilian constitutional rights

The damage caused by this criminal collaboration is estimated at over one billion dollars.

Epilogue: The Fight for Oversight and Justice

“If this happened in China, it would be a scandal. If it happened in Russia, we would call it state capture. But this happened in Brazil with an American company founded by "Nacho", profiting from it and nobody is watching. That changes now.”
- John Kaweske

We are calling on:

  • The U S Department of Justice to investigate Tricon under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and racketeering statutes

  • The SEC to audit any disclosure failures by Tricon and Bradesco to U S investors

  • The FBI to examine cross border corporate corruption

  • The international press to shine a light on the hidden pipelines of fuel corruption in Brazil

📣 JOIN THE MOVEMENT

This is no longer just a lawsuit: this is a wake up call to regulators, investors, and the global business community:

📌 If Brazilian businessmen can come and create American corporations that can fund mafia style takeovers abroad and remain untouched, then we have no rule of law only the rule of wealth!

📢 Help us bring visibility to this case. Share this story. Demand oversight. Demand justice!

Contact:

Full Complaint: Southern District of New York – Case No 25 CV 6588


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