Brazil Finance Minister Haddad Echoes Bio Clean Energy on Fuel Mafia; Tricon Energy unwilling to respond to facts and questions

Brazil Now Admits Fuel Crime Runs Through Delaware. Bio Clean’s Story Shows How Far the Ring Really Reaches.

Recent statements by Brazilian authorities confirm what we at Bio Clean have been trying to show for years.

Officials now say that the fuel sector has been infiltrated by organized crime, that billions of reais in unpaid taxes are connected to complex financial structures, and that United States entities, including Delaware vehicles, are part of the laundering circuit.

For most people this is a disturbing headline.

For us at Bio Clean Energy it is the architecture that destroyed our project.

I am writing now to place one central fact on the record for regulators in Brazil and in the United States

In my case, Tricon Energy, at the time Brazil’s largest importer of methanol, ignored me as President of Bio Clean Energy, a client of nine years, and chose to follow a person associated with the PCC to take orders for a sensitive and regulated input, methanol. When I questioned why Tricon was selling methanol to my company without my authorization, their directors organized a lunch meeting at Fogo de Chao with a PCC figure known as Beto Louco, in an attempt to convince me to keep quiet. In my view, these facts, combined with cash deposits, a forged document and institutional silence, form the core of a crime ring that links private actors, parts of the Brazilian state and organized crime.

From that experience forward, every time I look at a serious crime in the Brazilian fuel sector, I see Tricon somewhere in the picture.

First, Operacao Carbono, where the signature of known PCC actor, Mohammed Hussein appeared on a notarized document in São Paulo showing Tricon and the PCC in business. Ironically, this document was introduced as evidence by Tricon for why they did not follow my instructions. Confirmation from Tricon, that we didn't listen to the President of the Company because we chose to listen to a PCC mafia person instead. Sound legit to you?

Now, public records show Tricon connected to Grupo Refit, a company that Brazilian authorities and the press have revealed as operating a fake refinery in Manguinhos that functioned as a shell for irregular fuel imports rather than real refining activity. Refit is today at the center of one of the largest tax and fuel fraud cases in the country. Official documents from the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the ANP place Refit and Tricon side by side in the same import and storage chain, with Refit receiving Tricon as a valued commercial partner and ANP records linking fuels from Manguinhos to operations in which Tricon appears as a relevant player.

In other words, where there is serious crime or alleged fraud in the Brazilian fuel sector, Tricon appears repeatedly in close proximity. First Operacao Carbono and a PCC signature provided by Tricon as the basis for the unauthorized sales. And now a close relationship with Refit, a group that Brazilian authorities themselves now describe as a major case of fuel fraud. In my opinion that pattern alone justifies urgent regulatory and criminal scrutiny of Tricon's role.

I understand that the companies involved deny wrongdoing and that the courts will ultimately decide. What I am describing below are my lived facts and formal allegations.

The promise of Bio Clean and what destroyed it

I arrived in Brazil in 2004 because I believed in the country, in its people, and in President Lulas biodiesel program.

Before the inauguration of our biodiesel plant in Araraquara I shook President Lulas hand. To me that gesture was a seal of trust.

We invested more than twenty million reais to build a modern plant. We created jobs. We designed social programs for family farmers that served more than ten thousand people with technical assistance and guaranteed purchases. We planted one hundred thousand trees to recover degraded areas and offset emissions.

I did not come to speculate. I came to build a small part of Brazil's clean energy future.

What destroyed my company was not competition or management error. It was a system.

Sales of methanol without authorization from the legal representative of the company

A document with a forged signature registered at a public notary by a key PCC actor

Cash deposits by third parties with no link to our company, used to pay for purchases in our name

Rapid court decisions that ignored key evidence and due process

Refusal by authorities to investigate even when presented with formal notices and police reports

Real and immediate risk to my personal safety

At the center of that system sits one choice by a major international trader Tricon.

The central fact

Tricon ignored the Director President and followed a PCC agent.

This is the sentence that summarizes the heart of the case

Tricon ignored the Director President and followed an agent of the PCC.

For nine years Tricon did business with our group. They knew who I was. They knew I signed the contracts. They had our corporate records on file.

Yet at a critical moment, the company sold and continued to sell methanol based on a document signed by a third party who had no formal authority within our company, a person later associated with PCC activities in this sector, relying on a signature that was recognized in a Brazilian notary office as the PCC actor Mohammed Hussein.

In my view this was not a clerical error. It was a conscious decision to ignore the lawful representative and to go forward with a third party who opened the door to diversion and crime.

The documented warnings Tricon received

From the beginning of our relationship, my communications with Tricon were formal, clear and documented. There was no room for confusion about who could authorize purchases in the name of our company, Bio Petro, the trading arm associated with the plant.

Key steps include

First of November 2016

I sent an email to a Tricon representative with our full articles of incorporation attached. I stated clearly that no third party had any authority to negotiate or purchase methanol in our name. I explained that only I, as Director President, could authorize purchases. The same day, the Tricon representative answered that there could not be two purchase channels for the same client and directed the account to their internal methanol team.

Second of November 2016

I wrote to the Tricon methanol team and repeated that only two people could negotiate and close operations on behalf of Bio Petro myself as Director President and the Commercial Director listed in the corporate documents. I resent the corporate records and positions with full transparency.

Nineteenth and twenty fifth of January 2017

After learning at ANP that purchases had been carried out in our name without my authorization, I formally notified Tricon again, requested invoices and documentation, and my lawyer sent a legal notice attaching the corporate documents and stating in plain language that any acquisition in the name of Bio Petro without the approval of the Director President was illicit.

July 2017

We escalated directly to Tricon headquarters in the United States, writing to several senior executives, explaining that sales in the name of Bio Petro without my signature were illegal and had to stop.

One senior executive answered that Tricon would stop doing business with Bio Petro in order to avoid confusion, while stating that the company had done nothing wrong.

These exchanges show that Tricon received, read and recognized the warnings with our corporate documents in hand. They knew who held formal authority. They knew the Director President had prohibited purchases without his signature.

Yet the company continued with sales based on a document signed by a third party without valid authorization.

This is not a gap in knowledge. It is a choice to ignore the Director President.

How the commercial channel enabled diversion

Tricon operates in Brazil through business developers, intermediaries who offer methanol allotments as if access to supply were a special privilege. Purchases tend to be pushed through these agents rather than through direct negotiation with the trading company itself.

I experienced this model and questioned it repeatedly.

Why should I need a third party to buy from a legitimate supplier

This arrangement does more than complicate the customer relationship. It creates a parallel channel, suitable for kickbacks and diversion of methanol into illegal fuel markets.

This is not a minor detail. Methanol is a regulated and sensitive input in Brazil. It is used primarily for biodiesel production but can also be diverted into illegal fuel blends that harm engines, damage tax collection and feed organized crime.

The chemistry does not balance

Beyond the legal and documentary issues, there is a simple technical question that should concern every regulator.

Transesterification, the core chemical process that converts vegetable oil into biodiesel, requires around twelve percent methanol per liter of biodiesel as a process average.

In 2023 Brazil produced approximately seven and a half billion liters of biodiesel. That implies a technical need of about nine hundred million liters of methanol. In the same year Brazil imported around two billion liters of methanol. Sector statements from ANP indicate that roughly fifty two percent of domestic methanol consumption is attributed to biodiesel.

If we apply that percentage to imports, we get about one billion and forty million liters of imported methanol attributed to biodiesel, which already exceeds the technical requirement for the entire sector. When we consider domestic production, the gap becomes even larger.

Plants that operate in a serious manner recover and reuse unreacted methanol. Gross margins in the sector sit around seven to nine percent. These margins cannot support massive losses of methanol as an explanation for the gap.

The numbers point to something else systematic diversion that sends methanol to illegal fuel markets, with an excess that can reach hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

This discrepancy demands independent audit, with special focus on ports such as Paranaguá where imports concentrate.

The bank channel and the cash deposits

In the process against Banco Bradesco, another disturbing pattern appeared.

We discovered large cash deposits made by third parties, people and companies with no connection to Bio Petro, used to pay for methanol purchases in our name.

Examples drawn from court records include

A deposit of four hundred forty six thousand seven hundred thirty five reais in cash, on twenty first December 2016, by a third party individual. The bank determined that the funds originated in a company account, were withdrawn the same day, and then deposited for the benefit of Tricon.

A similar deposit for the same amount on twenty sixth December 2016, again by a different individual, with funds originating from another company, moved through a cashier check and credited to Tricon.

Other deposits involving additional individuals and small companies with no commercial link to Bio Petro, but that appear in the chain of payments that settled our supposed purchases of methanol.

None of these depositors were clients or suppliers of Bio Petro. None had any authorization to act in our name.

Basic banking compliance would require alerts, preventive blocking and communication to the financial intelligence unit under Brazilian law. Instead the funds flowed and settled obligations with Tricon.

In simple terms, the bank allowed large cash deposits by unknown third parties to be used to pay for methanol in the name of a biodiesel company whose Director President had already denounced diversion and false documents.

Once again, the corporate actors did not see or did not want to see what was in front of them.

Authorities who refused to act and a forty eight hour decision

Alongside the commercial and banking channels, there is a painful institutional story.

I went to DEIC in São Paulo and was told that they would not intervene because the PCC was involved and no one wanted a war.

I filed police reports regarding armed invasions of the plant.

I filed formal complaints with ANP about methanol diversion and never received effective action.

In Bahia, after buying land for a second project, we faced invasion by the seller himself and reports that gunmen had been hired to kill me. The local court did not secure our ownership.

In São Paulo, after years of litigation, a civil chamber of the state court issued a decision in forty eight hours, without a hearing and without addressing central evidence, in a case that had no genuine urgency.

For us this was a clear violation of due process and of constitutional guarantees of adversarial proceedings and full defense.

The result of this combination is simple. When we demanded enforcement of the rules, the response was either silence or accelerated procedure that locked in the damage.

When organized crime has presence inside fuel operations, and major counterparties and institutions treat the whistleblower as the problem, the system itself becomes part of the ring.

What we allege about Tricon, Bradesco and Bermudes

In our view, the roles of Tricon Energy, Banco Bradesco and Bermudes Advogados form a pattern that regulators must examine with urgency. The following are allegations that will be tested in court.

Tricon Energy

We allege that Tricon

Sold methanol in the name of our company based on a document with a false signature and without a valid power of attorney

Ignored repeated, formal, documented warnings from the Director President about unauthorized purchases

Relied on an intermediary within a business model that facilitates diversion of methanol to illegal markets

Thus aligned itself, in practice, with actors connected to PCC structures in the fuel chain, by choosing to follow a third party rather than the lawful representative

We also note that Tricon has a prior history of regulatory issues involving methanol in the United States, where it was fined by the Environmental Protection Agency, which in our view suggests a pattern of inadequate respect for rules in this space.

Banco Bradesco

We allege that Bradesco

Processed large cash deposits by unrelated third parties, on successive days, that were then used to settle obligations with Tricon for methanol purchases in our name

Failed to trigger alerts, internal reviews or mandatory reports to the financial intelligence authorities

Failed to protect its client, in this case Bio Petro, from obvious anomalies in payment flows linked to a regulated and sensitive input

These failures, in our opinion, constitute serious lapses in anti money laundering controls under Brazilian law.

Bermudes Advogados

We allege that Bermudes Advogados

Played a central role in litigation and legal strategies that in effect shielded the network around our project from accountability

Contributed to procedural outcomes that ignored key evidence of diversion, false documents and banking anomalies

In our opinion this is not just a private dispute over contracts. It is the behavior of important actors inside a much wider structure of fuel sector crime.

The companies deny wrongdoing. They have the right to present their version. That is not the point of this article.

The point is that the pattern we describe matches exactly the architecture that Brazilian authorities now admit exists in the fuel sector and that, in my experience, Tricon appears again wherever that architecture becomes visible.

Our renewed request to regulators in the United States

To the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury and FinCEN, the Securities and Exchange Commission and relevant banking supervisors in the United States, we respectfully renew the following request

Open a coordinated investigation into the conduct described in the Bio Clean civil RICO action and related materials, with particular attention to

The use of United States based companies, funds and accounts linked to Tricon and to Brazilian counterparties in transactions connected to methanol imports and biodiesel production

The interaction between those transactions and the fuel sector schemes that Brazilian authorities are now targeting, including those that rely on Delaware entities and that Brazilian officials connect to organized crime and even weapons shipments

Any overlap between the trail in our case and the networks now acknowledged by Brazilian ministries and enforcement bodies

We are not asking United States regulators to take sides in a commercial dispute.

We are asking them to treat our documentation as a whistleblower map that may support their own partners in Brazil who are finally, publicly, calling for cooperation against this ring.

Our request to Brazilian authorities and regulators

To the Central Bank of Brazil, the Federal Police, Receita Federal, ANP, SEFAZ and the Ministério Público, we present a detailed roadmap of actions that, in our view, are necessary if this ring is to be exposed and dismantled.

Among the steps we recommend

Full investigation of all cash deposits used to pay for methanol purchases in our name, including images of deposit slips, origin of funds, internal logs and approval chains inside the bank

Formal hearings with the depositors and with Tricon representatives who accepted documents signed by a third party without valid power of attorney

Independent audit of methanol imports at key ports, crossing arrival records, customs entries, destinations and monthly volumes

A national mass balance program that sums imports and domestic production of methanol and compares these figures with reported consumption by sector, with automatic investigation triggers when the ratios exceed technical limits

Judicial lifting of banking and tax secrecy, where appropriate, for depositors and intermediate accounts, to trace origin and final beneficiary of suspect flows

Forensic examination of all authorizations and signatures used for purchases in our name, including stamps and seals from notary offices linked to the third party who signed without authority

Hearings with Tricon executives in Brazil and abroad, and identification and registration of the business developers who act as intermediaries, their contracts, commissions and payment flows

Requests for internal and external communications from Tricon and from the bank, including emails, messages and credit approval records

Comprehensive port audits, with review of cargo control, customs documents, seals, weight records and outbound invoices for methanol shipments

Cross checks between ANP and SEFAZ databases to identify divergences between volumes acquired, processed, recovered and sold as biodiesel or methyl ester

On site inspections at selected plants and distributors to verify mass balance, recovery rates, energy consumption and operational logs

Referral of court processes in São Paulo and Bahia to oversight bodies for review of suspiciously rapid decisions without urgency

Disciplinary and criminal procedures where appropriate against magistrates and officials, with preservation of evidence and temporary removal if needed

Structured cooperation with foreign financial and customs authorities to trace payments and triangulation routes

A public timeline for these measures, with periodic reports at thirty and sixty days and a final report with sanctions

These are not abstract ideas. They are specific responses to specific facts that we have documented and that we are ready to support with testimony and records.

Structural reforms Brazil should consider

Based on what we lived, we also propose structural reforms aimed at restoring investor confidence and protecting the energy transition.

Suggestions include

Creation of a specialized court for foreign investors, with proceedings in English if needed, inspired by successful commercial courts in other countries, with clear jurisdiction and predictable timelines

A federal ombuds service linked to the Federal Police to receive and prioritize complaints from foreign investors facing threats or criminal pressure

Monthly public transparency for methanol data from ANP, audited by an independent body and easily traceable by citizens and media

A judicial integrity commission to review accelerated decisions without genuine urgency and to investigate conflicts and improper contacts

A national mandatory mass balance program for biodiesel and methyl ester, with automatic enforcement once suspicious ratios appear

A formal registry and certification system for intermediaries that deal with sensitive inputs, with full transparency of commissions and legal responsibility

Why we are writing this now

I came to Brazil because I believed in the biodiesel dream and in the Brazilian people. I shook the hand of the President and understood that there was a public commitment to clean energy.