Judge Kathleen Cardone sentenced Carlos Leopoldo Alvelais to 18 months in federal prison last week in the Western District of Texas, the human cost of a bribery scheme the Justice Department priced at over $10 million when it resolved charges against his client, The Scoular Company, days earlier.
Alvelais, a customs broker who ran Alvelais Forwarding & Logistics and Alvelais Customs Agency, pleaded guilty in 2025 to a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act offense. According to his unsealed plea agreement, filed in United States v. Alvelais in the Western District of Texas, he paid Mexican customs officials to clear Scoular grain trains that failed “suelo” impurity inspections at border crossings in El Paso, Laredo, and Eagle Pass, sparing the Omaha company fumigation and demurrage fees that could top $100,000 per train.
The mechanics were simple. Alvelais billed Scoular $2,000 to $3,000 per shipment under a line item labeled “SAGARPA process” fees, then used part of that money for bribes, coordinating with company employees over encrypted WhatsApp messages through at least 2023.
Cardone also ordered Alvelais to pay a $250,000 fine at no less than $2,000 a month, with garnishment on the table if he falls behind. He surrenders October 19, 2026.
The broker eats the prison time; the company eats the balance sheet. That split is standard FCPA choreography: corporations buy their way out with deferred prosecution agreements while the individuals who ran the scheme, and have no corporate shield, do the time. Alvelais’s three years of supervised release begins the day he walks out.
James Okafor