Your one and only “boss”It is the dollar, as he repeatedly tells his colleagues, between two swirls of Marlboro Light. And it is not the sanctions on Russian oil approved by the United States and other G7 countries that are stopping it. From his trading room in Dubai’s Platinum Tower, Azerbaijani trader Etibar Eyyub spins the ATM with limitless creativity: offshore companies, phantom cargo ships sailing with transponders off, transhipments carried out under radar off the coast of the coasts…
If the man is unknown to the general public, he is not unknown to US authorities, who have placed him under investigation. HE Wall Street Journal reported in February that the Department of Justice (DOJ) suspects that he has created a network of shell companies working in collaboration with a well-established commodities trading company in Geneva and Dubai: Coral Energy. From 2014 until at least 2018, he was a trader and right-hand man of Coral founder Tahir Garayev, also Azerbaijani and targeted by the Department of Justice. When contacted, the Justice Department declined to comment.
Coral Energy, which was a privileged partner of Russia and its oil giant Rosneft before the war against Ukraine, claims on its website to have ended its Russian contracts in early 2022. WorldThe company declares, through its lawyer, that ” agreement[e] highest priority to compliance with applicable sanctions laws of the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and others”and added that it is working with outside legal counsel. “review their activities and ensure compliance with the law”.
A “whitening” system
However, internal group documents obtained by the world show that between them Etibar Eyyub and Tahir Garayev allowed Russia to sell an important part of its oil to the rest of the world, without always complying with international sanctions. These confidential documents point directly to Europe. They reveal that Coral Energy’s commercial activity was boosted by financing from European banks, including Société Générale, worth several tens of millions of euros, but also by purchases from several oil majors, including the French giant TotalEnergies.
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