NAPA VALLEY, CA — CALIFORNIA— The nation’s largest alcohol distributor will pay $12.5 million to resolve a federal investigation into years of improper payments, false invoices, and luxury benefits tied to wine and spirits sales in California supermarkets, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits entered into a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors and agreed to pay the United States $12.5 million.

The company also agreed to strengthen compliance and cooperate with criminal prosecutions involving current or former employees.

Southern Glazer is the country’s largest distributor of wine and spirits with operations in 46 states and the District of Columbia.

In California, where Southern Glazer is the largest distributor of alcohol by volume, the investigation reached multiple levels of the alcohol industry in Rohnert Park, San Francisco, Union City, Walnut Creek, Livermore, Oakland, Pleasanton, Napa, several Southern California cities, and Idaho.

Distributors such as Southern Glazer play a major role in what gets stocked on retailers' shelves and behind the bars at restaurants and clubs. They also help determine what customers get charged.

The investigation found that Southern Glazer’s executives and employees funded and concealed improper payments and benefits for employees of alcohol retailers, including chain grocery stores in California and elsewhere.

Southern Glazer’s admitted responsibility for its employees’ actions, including years of payments and benefits connected to the promotion, purchase, retention, and placement of alcohol products distributed by the company.

These included off-book “creative incentive” payments to Southern Glazer employees, and improper gifts, travel, entertainment expenses, or other payments to retail customer employees — which were at times facilitated through the use of third-party vendors.

They were, at times, documented with falsified invoices, according to court documents.