Although tracking data offers no sign of the Kubrosli-y’s whereabouts during that week, photos posted on Facebook by a Syrian government agency two days before its reappearance provide clues to why its crew might have been keen to disguise their location.

One of the images shows Syrian oil and minerals minister Bassam Toumeh at the Mediterranean port of Tartus. Another shows the Kubrosli-y docked at one of two berths at the port that were custom-built to load phosphate, a prized mineral that has been a major economic lifeline for the sanctioned regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria has some of the largest known reserves of the increasingly sought-after fertilizer ingredient. The phosphate industry collapsed when Islamic State militants seized the country’s largest mines in 2015, but production has revived since government forces recaptured them the following year, attracting buyers even from countries opposed to Assad’s regime.

The journey of the Kubrosli-y, and the techniques it deployed, offer a glimpse into the murky supply chain of Syrian phosphates as they make their way from regions torn apart by civil war to farmers across Europe. Every step of the way, the trade enriches the Syrian state, war profiteers, and people with deep ties to Russia’s elite.

Despite the risks of sanctions violations, Serbia, Ukraine, and four European Union states have imported over $80 million worth of Syrian phosphates since 2019, according to a new investigation by OCCRP member centers in seven countries, in partnership with Lighthouse Reports and Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ).

The United States has imposed sanctions on both the Syrian government and the Russian company that appears to control much of Syria’s phosphate exports, Stroytransgaz. The EU has also sanctioned two key players: Syria’s Toumeh and Stroytransgaz’s owner, Gennady Timchenko, a billionaire tycoon and close ally of the Kremlin. But neither the U.S. nor the EU specifically prohibit the purchase of Syrian phosphates.

Experts say companies still run the risk of violating sanctions even if the phosphates trade is technically legal. A 2018 report by Politico that Greece was buying Syrian phosphates raised hackles in the European Parliament, and imports stopped soon after.

Even Stroytransgaz has tried to distance itself from the industry, insisting that it has no connection to two similarly named companies that dominate the trade today. But OCCRP and its partners found evidence of several links between Stroytransgaz and these firms.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has also led to increased pressure for European companies to cut ties to sanctioned Russian figures, such as Timchenko.

“Syrian phosphates are very bloody, not only because of the conflict in Syria but also what is happening in Ukraine,” said Glen Kurokawa, a phosphate analyst at commodity research group CRU. “Syria has to sell at a political discount because its goods are so toxic to handle.”

Asked about the imports, the EU Commission said it was up to individual countries to decide whether Syrian phosphate imports break sanctions. Authorities in Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Serbia confirmed they regard the trade as legal. Italian authorities did not reply to requests for comment.

Karam Shaar, a Syrian economist, said the trade shows how easily sanctions can be circumvented by opaque supply chains or by channeling funds and goods through the unknown subsidiaries of targeted companies.

“Of course exporting phosphates to Europe is a violation of sanctions,” he said. “But most of the countries don’t understand the structure of the organizations they have sanctioned.”

In the case of the Kubrosli-y, in the space of just three weeks it had set out from Istanbul, slipped in and out of Syria and sailed back through the Bosphorus to Nika Tera port in Ukraine, owned by a sanctioned oligarch.

“The ship owner doesn’t want anyone to know that his ship is coming from an economically sanctioned country like Syria,” said a Syrian ship captain from Tartous, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Sierra Leone-flagged Daytona Prime disappeared from AIS systems south of Cyprus while headed in Syria’s direction on Jan. 20, 2019. Satellite images show the ship docked in Tartous two weeks later, where port documents reveal it visited the phosphates berths the following day.

The ship appeared again on AIS south of Cyprus before reaching Romania’s Constanta port on the Black Sea on February 16, the same day that Romanian customs records show a cargo of Syrian phosphates were imported.

Tartous port took most of its recent records offline in June 2020, but more recent phosphate shipments could be identified using open-source and satellite images.

A Honduran-flagged cargo ship called the Sea Navigator disappeared from AIS off the coast of Cyprus on January 4, 2022, and then reappeared heading north before reaching Romania’s Constanta port on January 21. During this time, it appeared in the background of a selfie taken by a worker in the Tartous phosphates berth which was posted to social media.

The International Maritime Organization, the U.N. agency that regulates global shipping, requires ships to broadcast AIS positions at all times, so ships with blackouts like these are problematic. That, in combination with the threat of sanctions and bad publicity, leaves European importers of Syrian phosphates working with ship owners on the legal fringes of the industry.

One of these is Aminos Maritime Ltd, which owns the Kubrosli-y, the ship that reporters noticed turning off its tracker in May last year before delivering phosphates to Ukraine. The ship has also made deliveries of Syrian phosphates to Romania and Greece. Aminos did not reply to a request for comment.

Another ship, the Prince Mouhammad, is owned by a Lebanon-based company whose largest shareholder is owned by relatives of Jihad al-Arab, a contractor close to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Last year, Arab was sanctioned by the U.S. for corruption. He did not respond to a request for comment either.

Ibrahim Olabi, a Syrian legal expert who monitors sanctions evasion, said the methods used to dodge sanctions in Syria would likely help Russian companies avoid new sanctions imposed by the European Union and United States over the Ukraine war.

“The Syrian phosphates trade shows why the EU sanctions system is not fit for purpose,” he said. “Sanctions evasion works and it’s not even that difficult.”

The industry’s dubious legality has also given rise to a complex network of proxies and middlemen.

‘Blood Money’

On a busy shopping street in London’s upmarket Kensington neighborhood, a small office above a secondhand clothing store is listed as the address of a British company called Resalper Trading Ltd.

The company sold $450,000 worth of Syrian phosphates to Ukrainian company Prime Organics in August 2020 — the country’s top importer of Syrian phosphates over the past two years — according to Ukrainian customs records. But Resalper Trading reported no financial activities in the year ending in May 2020, and only around $530 in assets that month, according to its most recent filings.

The office in Kensington belongs to formation agents Company Wizard and Quick File. When OCCRP contacted the 29-year-old Ukrainian who founded Resalper Trading in 2019, Ruslan Turkovskyi, he declined to comment.

Ukraine’s imports of Syrian phosphates ballooned from $3 million worth in 2018 to $15 million last year, despite Ukrainian sanctions imposed on Stroytransgaz and Timchenko. Most of those that arrive by sea enter through the Nika Tera port, owned by the sanctioned pro-Moscow oligarch Dmitry Firtash.

Sanctions expert Irene Kenyon, director of risk intelligence at the consultancy FiveBy Solutions, said using shell companies is a common strategy to disguise the fact that sanctioned entities or individuals were benefiting from a trade.

“Even though you might be legally in the right, you’re also giving blood money to a sanctioned human-rights violating regime and a sanctioned Russian oligarch,” she said.

Europe Quietly Resumed Syrian Phosphate Imports

Serbia and Ukraine are Europe’s top buyers of Syrian phosphates, while several EU states have also resumed imports.

Ukraine’s imports halted after the Russian invasion in February, but the country is far from the only buyer of Syrian phosphates.

In Serbia — Europe’s top buyer of Syrian phosphates in recent years — one importer was a former beauty company called Yufofarm. A Serbian business registry shows the company imported $26.9 million worth of products from Syria in 2021, though it did not specify what they were. Yufofarm declined to comment.

Yufofarm is owned by the business partner of Stanko Popovic, whose agriculture and fertilizer company, Elixir Group bought the Syrian phosphates Yufofarm imported. Elixir Group is the exclusive supplier of phosphoric acid — used to make fertilizers and animal feed — for the local operations of a major French conglomerate called Groupe Roullier.

“If the person you’re buying cargo from isn’t under sanctions then you’re further removed and aren’t necessarily busting sanctions yourself,” a maritime lawyer told OCCRP, speaking anonymously as they were not authorized to talk to the press. “This is the trade version of international money laundering.”

A spokesperson for the French company said it did “not use Syrian phosphate” and strictly complied with all sanctions.

Popovic acknowledged buying Syrian phosphates, which he had done since the 1970s, but told reporters that all his business transactions were legal. “We do not cooperate with any company in Syria on the basis of phosphate imports, or on any other basis,” he said.

Although Greece appeared to have stopped importing Syrian phosphates after the 2018 Politico report, at least four other EU member states — Italy, Bulgaria, Spain, and Poland — quietly resumed imports, OCCRP and its partners found. EU and UN trade data show that Italy started importing in 2020, Bulgaria in 2021, and Spain and Poland earlier this year.

Many of the EU’s imports of Syrian phosphates entered the bloc through Romania. Most of them were handled by two Middle Eastern companies, UAE-registered Blue Gulf Trading and Lebanon-registered Medsea Trading, both of which are owned by Lebanese businessman Afif Nazih Auf. He did not respond to requests for comment.

In Italy, Syrian phosphates are imported by Puccioni Spa, an established Italian fertilizer company. The company confirmed the purchases, but said it dealt with Syrian authorities through a broker, and that it did not work with Stroytransgaz.

In Bulgaria, Syrian phosphates are imported by a small Bulgarian company called Fertix EOOD, which was founded in 2017. Fertix’s managing director, Radostin Radev, has deep connections in Bulgaria’s agriculture industry, after starting his career at Agropolychim, one of the biggest fertilizer producers in the Balkans.

Radev said he had sold some of the Syrian phosphates to EuroChem Agro Bulgaria, a subsidiary of Eurochem Group AG, which is connected to Russian billionaire Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko. Melnichenko, who was sanctioned by the EU and the U.K. for supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine, recently withdrew from the company’s board.

For now, the trade in Syrian phosphates appears to be growing in spite of the many political complexities. Sergiy Moskalenko, director of Dnipro Mineral Fertilizer Plant, a Ukrainian firm that uses Syrian phosphates, told OCCRP that for them the purchases were a practical matter.

“Look, we need to eat,” he said. “In order to eat properly we need to supply the soil with fertilizers and to do this we must purchase the raw materials. To buy them, we unfortunately turn to…” He paused. “We take whatever phosphates are offered to us.”

Eva Constantaras (Lighthouse Reports), Hala Naserddine, (Daraj), Adam Chamseddine (Al Jadeed TV), Hervé Chambonniere (Le Telegramme), Ahmad Haj Hamdo, Ayman Makieh and Ahmad Obaid (SIRAJ) contributed reporting.

The post A ‘Bloody’ Trade: Inside the Murky Supply Chain Bringing Syrian Phosphates Into Europe appeared first on SIRAJ.

Even more unusually, the mansion passed through the hands of a widowed pensioner who lived in a Communist-era public housing block in southwest Bucharest. Leana Pielmus, then 58, bought it on September 10 for 3.5 million euros (the equivalent of US$5 million). The average pension in Romania at the time was 162 euros per month.

Pielmus sold it a week later to the Syrian Foreign Ministry for 4.46 million euros (US$6.6 million), according to sales contracts obtained by journalists from OCCRP partners RISE Project and SIRAJ.

The deal, which has never been reported in the mainstream media, was brokered by her son-in-law, Ammar Aoun, a dentist who counts the Syrian ambassador to Romania among his friends.

“The person who bought and sold the property to the Syrian government is a relative of a close friend of the ambassador,” said Romania-based Syrian dissident Mohamad Rifai, also a dentist.

“She did not have millions sitting in her bank account, she is not a known real estate agent, and a huge amount of money entered and left her bank account overnight.”

In the aftermath of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal suppression of anti-government protests in Damascus in March 2011, the European Union imposed sanctions on the Syrian strongman and his close associates, which are still in place. Romania is one of a few EU countries that have nevertheless maintained diplomatic relations with the Syrian regime throughout the subsequent civil war.

Dissidents like Rifai argue that Bucharest has become a European hub for the illicit financial networks of Assad and his wealthy cousin, Rami Makhlouf, who is married to the daughter of the Syrian ambassador.

That ambassador, Walid Othman, is among Assad’s closest associates. He has been at his diplomatic post in Romania for 13 years, despite having blown past the mandatory retirement age of 65. In 2012, Reuters quoted a former Syrian oil minister as saying that Othman was “one of the people making dealings on behalf of the Assad family,” although he could not provide concrete proof for the claim.

The dentist who brokered the embassy deal, Ammar Aoun, told OCCRP member center RISE Project that he was responsible for the purchase made by his pensioner mother-in-law — as well as the building’s immediate sale to the Syrian Embassy at a nearly 30-percent markup.

“I did everything,” he said. “Why is a Romanian citizen questioning what is happening in the Syrian Embassy?”

The dentist declined to comment on his million-dollar profit and did not say why his mother-in-law was on the paperwork. But he admitted that he had received much more than that from the Syrian Embassy over the years.

“I cashed 10 million, not a million, and what, am I not allowed? I received 10 million, I received between 10 and 15 million. They gave me a commission.”

Hours after the interview, Aoun texted the reporter again.

“Good evening, I am sorry for the tone of the discussion we had today. I consider the subject old, legal and closed. Good luck in your effort to shed light on this matter.”

Ambassador Othman and the Syrian Foreign Ministry declined to say whether the deal followed public procurement rules or if the Syrian government investigated the potential conflict of interest.

Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the question of how the Syrian Embassy was purchased was outside its purview. But Camelia Bogdan, a Romanian judge with expertise in money laundering, said the transaction raised red flags that should have been reported to authorities.

“There are obviously red flags of money laundering through [the] real estate system (e.g., lack of any financial justification, payments through a proxy who could not justify the legal origins of the funds) that should have been addressed by the notary who legalized the fraudulent scheme through an enhanced due diligence in accordance with AML obligations,” she wrote to reporters.

“In this case, the notary had the duty to identify the beneficial owner and submit a suspicious transaction report to the FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit).”

The Dentist and the Diaspora

Romania and Syria have had close diplomatic ties since the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. The former communist dictator had a warm relationship with Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron grip for nearly three decades.

The Syrian army relied partially on Romanian weapons to equip its soldiers. Damascus was also a major importer of livestock, timber, and other commodities from Romania before the EU imposed sanctions on Syria in 2011.

Hundreds of Syrians arrived in Romania in the 1980s, when Ceaușescu gave out scholarships to students from the socialist state. Many stayed behind, working as doctors and engineers or setting up businesses.

Ammar Aoun was among them. He studied dentistry in Bucharest and married a Romanian woman with whom he now runs a dental clinic.

“Those who came before 1990 were mostly students in medicine, dentistry, or studied at the polytechnic,” said an NGO worker in Bucharest who spent years assisting Syrian and other immigrant communities. She spoke on condition of anonymity because her workplace forbids employees from speaking to the press.

“They stayed here, received Romanian citizenship, and became businessmen with high influences. They own hotel chains, football teams, restaurants.”

All that changed in 2011, when the 5,000-strong Syrian-Romanian community was riven by the outbreak of civil war.

“Overnight, some Syrians became enemies of the regime,” the aid worker said.

Others, like Aoun, doubled down on their support for Assad’s government, joining with another businessman to donate an SUV to the embassy. His Facebook profile is full of quotes supporting the Assad regime — and his friend the ambassador.

“The sun of a beautiful day rises … and nothing makes you happier than love and loyalty!!” he wrote in one typical post in late September. “A good morning full of loyalty and love to Syria, a country of Glory, and His Excellency Dr. Walid Othman.”

Dangerous Advice

A month after Aoun brokered the embassy deal, he became embroiled in a money laundering case involving another Syrian-Romanian businessman, Yakhni Abdulkader.

The affair began when Abdulkader’s wife set off to Turkey with $769,000 tucked away in her travel bag, according to court documents.

Abdulkader called Aoun and asked for help evading customs officers at Bucharest Airport. Aoun told Abdulkader he would check whether “the person he knows is there,” according to prosecution documents.

But the money was confiscated, and Abdulkader was tried and convicted for organized crime and money laundering. Prosecutors accused him of using his wife, among other couriers, to launder money for a criminal ring that operated in Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. Abdulkader laundered up to $3.5 million between September 2009 and January 2010, according to court records.

Aoun was called as a witness in the case, but has insisted that his only role was recommending that Abdulkader contact a lawyer.

Aoun is also Facebook friends with Haytham A. Asaad, a Syrian-Romanian businessman who holds shares in a company that bought land inside a Romanian military base used by NATO soldiers in a deal exposed by OCCRP and RISE Project in 2018. Ambassador Othman’s son was that company’s main shareholder.

“Bone of the Regime’s Neck”

Othman was born in 1953 in a mountainous village overlooking the coastal town of Latakia, the seat of the ruling Assad family.

And like the Assads, Othman is part of the powerful Alawite minority, which has dominated Syrian politics since Hafez al-Assad seized power in 1971.

He began his career as a member of Syria’s ruling Baath Party, tasked with recruiting young people to join. In the 1990s he served as governor of the city of Dara’a, on Syria’s southern border with Jordan. His daughter, Razan, married Rami Makhlouf, the cousin of Bashar Al-Assad, cementing the links between the two families.

Makhlouf, a businessman who controlled more than 60 percent of the Syrian economy before the war broke out in 2011, is sanctioned by the European Union and the United States for his role in government corruption and bankrolling the Assad regime. Razan Othman is also under sanctions, although her father is not.

In 2007, Assad named Othman Syria’s ambassador to Romania. In turn, Othman has remained the president’s staunch supporter, even siding with him when he fell out with Makhlouf earlier this year.

“Walid Othman is among a group of ambassadors who are very close to the ruling family,” said Saker Elmelhem, a former Syrian ambassador to Chile who quit in 2013 in protest of what he saw as increasing sectarianism and corruption within the Foreign Ministry.

Elmelhem and another senior ex-diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, both described Othman and a handful of other envoys in Assad’s inner circle as “the bone of the regime’s neck.”

“This group operates above Syrian laws and regulations,” said Elmelhem. “Their terms get extended and they can sell and buy all of Syria.”

These envoys mostly hail from leading Alawite families who have important connections within Syria’s pervasive security apparatus — the country’s real power brokers.

“Even President Assad does not dare come close to them,” Elmelhem said. “This context helps explain the purchase of the embassy, and how Othman has maintained his post over the years in Romania.”

Under Syrian law, Othman should have retired two years ago, when he hit 65. But Assad has renewed his posting nonetheless, perhaps because nominating a new envoy might stir up trouble for Romania, which would have to approve the appointment and thus actively confirm its accord with Syria.

While many European states expelled Syria’s ambassadors after the Assad regime’s violent crackdown on anti-government protesters in 2011, Romania did not. Instead, both countries have increased security around the embassy at 47 Paris Street, which has become the site of regular protests by local Syrians who oppose Assad.

Dr. Rifai, the dissident, said the embassy building felt to him like a symbol of corruption and wasta — the Arabic word for insider connections.

“We Syrians who belong to humanity … feel it is an embassy that does not provide us with any form of protection,” he said.

The post How a Syrian Ambassador’s Friend Made a Million Selling Him an Embassy appeared first on SIRAJ.