Hamburg -based companies smuggled American weapon technology and Venezuelan oil to Russia – and was also paid for with a cryptocurrency
The port of Hamburg. Image by Tobias F. Wolf via Flickr.com. License: Creative Commons
The Hamburg -based company NDA GmbH was the turntable of sanctioned deliveries to Russia. In order to wash the money for the deliveries of oil and technology, they also used a cryptocurrency.
American authorities publish press releases that sound as if they were as if they were the trailer of a Netflix secretary series.
Yesterday they had been forgotten again: the United States Ministry of Justice published a message entitled “Five Russian citizens and two oil dealers are charged with the circumvention of global sanctions and money laundering.”
It’s about a criminal network that ranges from Russia to Venezuela, and a Hamburg company that is at the center of which. This network smuggled military technology and oil; The payments also veiled it through a cryptocurrency.
A tremendous story in which the location of Germany is terrifyingly deeply involved. Bitcoin does not play in her, but a different cryptocurrency but a small role.
The NDA from Hamburg
If the press release is the trailer, the indictment is the series. It begins with the “Nord-Deutsche Industriensanlagenbau GmbH” (NDA GmbH) from Hamburg. This is at the center of the criminal network and serves as a hub for an illegal trade from North and South America to Russia and China.
NDA GmbH was founded in 2018 by Juri Oreekhow and Artem Uss. Orekhow had previously worked for a Russian aluminum company that has belonged to an oligarch that has long been occupied by sanctions -this will occur later -and resided in Germany and the Arab Emirates. Orekhow was arrested in Germany and is delivered to the USA. USS is the son of a Russian politician, the governor of the Siberian region of Krasnojarsk. He was arrested in Italy and is also delivered.
The NDA employee Swetlana Kuzurgaschewa, who also appeared as Lana Neumann, is also charged. She was also CEO from Setevew Tekhnologii, a Russian trade company for electronics.
The NDA was the hub of several international imports that violated sanctions. They carried out electronics for military technology from the USA and oil from Venezuela and through several companies in Russia or Kazakhstan.
Microchips and oil
Orekhow and his colleagues bought electrical engineering from companies in California and New York. Under false information, they brought the manufacturers to sell militarily relevant high-tech to Russia, including semiconductors, FPGA chips and RAM. This electronics are installed in military flight indicators, rocket systems, ammunition, radar devices and other military equipment and has already been discovered in conquered Russian weapons in Ukraine.
Then the NDA imported oil from the Venezuelan PDVSA to Russia, for example for the above-mentioned aluminum factory of the above-mentioned oligarch, but also to China, for the state refinery conglomat. Venezuela offered a juicy discount of 40 percent for the “incriminated goods”. The indictment quotes a short email dialog between orekhow and the Spaniard Juan Fernando Serrano Ponce, which threaded the trade:
Orekhow: he [the oligarch] is under sanctions. That is why we operate from this company [NDA GmbH]. As front end.
Serrano: My partner too, hahah … He is very close to the government. He is one of the most influential people in Venezuela. Supernate at the Vice President.
There were several shipping deliveries that brought oil from Venezuela to Russia or China. Serrano reports about the expires of a tanker: “The tanker left amuay at 03: 1. As soon as we leave Venezuelan waters, the GPS is switched off.“So the ship could drive unnoticed. About another tanker, the one with 850.000 Barrels oil was loaded for China, the contact man from Venezuela wrote: “I think the Suezmax is too big for Guaraguao, and I’m not talking about the size, I talk about the fact that the tanker is too visible and prompted people to chat about it.”
“The key is cash”
In order to pay these deliveries, Orekhow and its criminal colleagues have slipped in the scope of tens of millions of dollars through the financial system and broken sanctions and other US laws. They managed this through several channels.
In Venezuela it was preferred to accept cash – dollar in seems. A short email dialog from the indictment illustrates this:
Serrano: We have 600.000 barrel oil sold.
Orekhew: You have 600.000 sold? Why not to us?
Serrano: The buyer paid 100 percent in cash. And we agreed. Next time we speak for you.
Orekhew: Was it locals or Russians?
Serrano: Russians. The key is cash.
Orekhew: We can also procure cash.
Orekhow later promised to lock the cash from a bank from Canada to a bank in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. “We make a payment to our account in Panama and on the same day they give you cash in caracas.“With the help of couriers, the cash was smuggled into Venezuela and Russia.
After the money was transported in bundles as in the past century, the second part of the money laundering began: inlet into the financial system. Numerous banks from all over the world, from Panama, the Caribbean, New York, China, Hong Kong, Australia, the Emirates (Dubai), England, Egypt, Singapore and other locations.
Crypto also occurs
Most of the money laundering ran through traditional banks. However, a cryptocurrency was also used: Orekhow, Serrano and their Venezuelan contact wrapped a payment for 500.000 barrels crude oil over Tether, the often controversial dollar-based stable coin USDT. A short email dialogue also provides information about this:
Serrano: On Wednesday we have to pay 50 percent. You want $ 0.50 per barrel. Can you transfer usdt?
Orekhow: yes. It should be 100 percent in USDT? Or can part of the cash too?
Serrano: We know someone who gives us cash against USDT.
A little later, Orekhow raves:
As soon as we create, we will transfer immediately. USDT is as fast as a SMS. You have the cash, I’ve already arranged it … it is faster than a telegram. That’s why everyone uses it today. It’s comfortable and it’s quick.
As a result, they transferred Tether worth several hundred thousand and millions of dollars several times. Tether were also used for dollar payments for delivery to China. Stablecoin was apparently not involved in the export of military technology.
Neither Bitcoin, nor Monero, nor any other real cryptocurrency was used for money laundering. For orekhow and its partners in Russia, Venezuela and China, it obviously did not matter that the Tether dollar is published by a central company that is able to put addresses on a blacklist. It was more important to them to use the dollar as an invoice unit.