A Cypriot ghost company accused of paying bribes on behalf of an infamous Serbian arms broker has deposited $1. 7 million in a secret accepted as true with a fund created for a large number of Saudi bank documents.
The fund’s Qatari parent company was fined through regulators for a series of regulatory crimes, and an investigation of criminals was opened that can lead to fees opposed to its directors.
Although the purpose of this truly extensive payment is unknown, Saudi Arabia has become a primary arms customer of Serbian state factories since the beginning of the Syrian civil war. One of the main benefactors of this increase in business was Slobodan Tesei, the broker weapons that would be the phantom company that carried out the transfer.
He had already spent nearly a decade under United Nations sanctions after he promoted weapons to the former Liberian president and was convicted by war criminal Charles Taylor. Powerful Serbian politicians helped him get off the UN blacklist in 2013.
Less than five years later, in December 2017, the United States also sanctioned Teia, claiming that it had paid “big bribes” to unload arms sales contracts. The United States also claimed that Teia controlled a Cypriot ghost company, Grawit Limited, which he used as an intermediary to pay politicians (He denies it).
Exactly what Teeei has done to unload the new sanctions has never been made public, but the OCCRP hounds and its Serbian member center KRIK have now discovered transaction logs that appear several months before the US decision, in June 2017. , Grawit had sent $ 1. 7 million to a Qatar trust. He has been reported to the United States government as a suspect.
FinCEN’s archives are a 16-month survey conducted through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, BuzzFeed News and more than 400 foreign newscasts in 88 countries, adding those of occRP and its network of member centers.
The investigation is based on more than 2,100 secret bank reports filed with the U. S. Treasury Department intelligence unit, the Financial Crime Execution Network, other documents, and dozens of interviews.
One of them is a spreadsheet detailing 77 suspicious transactions reported to the US government. But it’s not the first time From the bank AIK Banka of Serbia and transmitted through its corresponding institution, VTB Bank in Moscow. Most transactions are similar to arms dealers founded in Serbia, adding payment. Grawit’s $1. 7 million Limited. La the only company of this call at the time founded in Cyprus and secretly controlled through Slobodan Teia, according to the United States government.
This acceptance as true of the fund is a component of a wealth control company called Horizon Crescent Wealth, which is managed through Swiss bankers but founded in the Emirate of the Gulf of Qatar. As a component of its marketing for customers, it praised Qatar’s “light approach” to cash laundering regulation.
Horizon Crescent has also opened six “special purpose companies” to conduct types of express monetary transactions. One of them was Crescent Middle East LLC, which was created as a company to gain advantages of a type known only in legal documents. as a “Saudi leader. ” It was the company that earned a payment of $1. 7 million in June 2017 as a suspect.
Eight months later, the Central Bank of Qatar froze accounts for the entire Horizon Crescent network and Qatar’s monetary regulator launched an investigation into the wealth control company, according to court documents.
Several suspicious Horizon Crescent-related bills were discovered and, in March 2020, the regulator fined companies 30 million Qatari riyars (approximately $8. 2 million) for a series of regulatory violations, adding the non-implementation of adequate cash laundering controls. An investigation is underway into “money laundering and/or corruption” that can lead to criminal prosecution opposed to the company’s two administrators, his lawyer told the OCCRP.
This year, Horizon lost an appeal opposed to the decision. During appeal hearings, regulators argued that the company’s consumers had used their network to hide suspicious invoices in the Middle East and Africa, adding an “M. “ONE. “
Regulators said they discovered evidence that Horizon Crescent had won “substantial funds” on behalf of Mr. A, which they knew as an official of a Middle Eastern country. The cash was then transferred to Switzerland.
The payment was intended to be a “consultation in the sale and control of ambulance aircraft and medical equipment”, but were paid “by a well-known arms dealer,” according to court documents.
Qatari officials have appointed the arms dealer, but FinCEN files raise the option of him being tei or one of his associates.
Serbian arms dealer Slobodan Tesei called for the first time to violate United Nations sanctions by promoting arms to Liberia’s former president, warlord Charles Taylor. These agreements blacklisted him from the UN in 2004.
Teeei’s replaced with the election of the Serbian Progressive Party, which entered into force in 2012 and gave his daughter Danijela a position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Its boss, Chancellor Ivan Mrkio, has given the go-ahead for the removal of Teia from the UN sanctions list, to documents reviewed through the OCCRP Serbian centre, KRIK.
In December 2013, less than a month after the United Nations withdrew the sanctions against it, it was granted a five-year diplomatic passport, a privilege reserved for senior government officials.
“I gave him a diplomatic passport because he and some others were going to export Serbian products,” Mrkio told KRIK.
Since then, it’s been booming. In announcing U. S. sanctions against him in 2017, the Treasury Department has called Teia “the largest arms and ammunition broker in the Balkans. “
Just in case, Horizon Crescent acted as an intermediary on the invoices of a diplomat, “Mr. H”, from an unidentified African country.
“There is no explanation as to why such an interim settlement was required, why bills were won and made on behalf of [Horizon Crescent], or why Mr. H. you’re entitled to a commission, let alone such a gigantic commission,” the court’s report says.
“The choice of corruption is obvious. [Horizon Crescent] looked fat. “
Through lawyers, the Swiss administrators of Horizon Crescent Wealth told reporters that they had done nothing wrong and that Grawit-related transactions were dealt with through the director.
The suspicious cash movement is the only link to the network of corporations created through Horizon Crescent Wealth.
Of the six subsidiaries of the wealth control company, two are run through Yemeni businessman Khaled Hamed, who has various ties to Tesei. Hamed also transferred $ 40,000 to Horizon Crescent in 2017 in a transaction reported to the US government as suspicious, according to FinCEN. files.
Hamed received Serbian citizenship in 2016 through the country’s prime minister, Aleksandar Vusei, under circumstances.
In February 2016, Serbia’s official newspaper reported that Khaled Hamed had a citizen after a resolution through then-Prime Minister Aleksandar Vusei, who is now the country’s president.
Born in Yemen, Hamed overlooked the same old application procedure and received citizenship on the basis of Serbia’s “national interest,” according to the announcement.
It is not known how the national interest served through the decision. All government establishments contacted through the OCCRP Serbian member centre, KRIK, declined to comment.
“The right of this government [to grant citizenship] for political and non-public purposes, or to gain advantages from certain interest groups,” said Milica Vabi, a lawyer for the civil society organization Klikaktiv.
Hamed’s relationship with Slobodan Teeei could have helped. The arms corridor has close ties to the ruling party, which has removed it from the United Nations sanctions list.
Hamed uses the same layer as that indicated through Teia for two of its companies. Partizan Tech until 2017 was founded in a state-owned villa in Belgrade that still bears the company’s name, and a subsidiary remains registered there.
The telephone and fax numbers provided for the corporate tour through Hamed, Stallway Ltd. , correspond to Partizan’s old numbers, but hounds may not find any official signs of Hamed at the address.
Hamed and Teii’s main agent, Andri, are connected through HK Komerc, a Bosnian company registered in 2015. Hamed gave strength to a Sarajevo lawyer in a signed and certified document through Andrio.
Hamed’s website, Sanus Investment, explains that Stallway “acts more or lessArray . . . as a key supplier to governments, internal ministries and defense to be precise, offering fuel for aircraft, armored cars and equipment. “
The online page boasts that its other corporations have “invested heavily in genuine real estate projects in Hamburg and Dusseldorf”, with plans to expand to more German cities.
A Stallway Limited registered in Qatar with HCW was, according to HCW’s lawyer, a “computer for the Saudi government”.
The truth of Hamed’s so-called business empire is much less glamorous. The front of its “European headquarters” is a tavern in Bonn, closed for many years according to the most recent report of the local press in May, while its other two well-known projects in Germany are fast food.
When he asked for a comment, Hamed responded with a two-word email: “Get lost. “
One of these “special objective companies” cited Goran Andrio as director. It is the same call as a Serb that The Treasury sanctioned in December 2019, calling him “one of Teai’s closest affiliates”. .
Responding in writing through his company Partizan Tech, he stated that he can simply “categorically verify that he had never engaged in corrupt activities” and that he had “initiated an exclusion procedure” to evade U. S. sanctions.
“Unfortunately, he points out that because of this nature of the industry, he is in the afterlife and still faces an unfair festival, with distorted facts and false accusations that oppose him, namely a regional and state festival that relies on resources to damage Partizan Tech and more broadly the Serbian defense industry,” the company said.
The last two special purpose corporations were connected with Latin Americans who had a call center in Costa Rica, named Ms. EA and Ms. AI in Qatar’s court documents. Although connected to Teai’s arms trafficking network, these corporations were at the center of the opposite horizon case brought through the Regulatory Authority of the Qatar Financial Center.
Qatari regulators have found that Latin Americans are Horizon’s main customers. Corporations created and controlled through Horizon for them had approximately $14 million.
In court filings, regulators said they distrusted the true origin of the funds and pointed to an unrthodox configuration in which Horizon won the email to deal with commands that did appear to be similar to Latinos. fully questionable means of receiving orders. “
Regulators told the court that they were “concerned that the budget transferred to [Horizon] on behalf of the plaintiffs is part of complicated money laundering and tax evasion. “
Responding to a lawyer, Swiss executives at Horizon Crescent Wealth, Patrick Baeriswyl and Jean Marc Mantegani, said they had “vigorously disputed” the accusations against them.
They claimed that all Grawit Limited transfers were controlled through a Qatari director of the company called Mohamed Abdulaziz Mohamed Al Emadi, who was also Hamed’s point of contact.
Al Emadi describes himself as a “prominent Qatari businessman” in court documents filed at Qatar Horizon Crescent for unpaid wages and expenses.
The company denies the allegations and has responded with its own accusations opposed to Al Emadi, nephew of Qatar’s finance minister, to court documents notified through journalists.
“My consumer points out that M. Al-Emadi illegally withdrew really large sums of cash that belonged to the beneficiaries of the trust,” the company wrote. “He did it through credit card withdrawals at London casinos. “
M. Al Emadi responded to a request for comment.
As for Tei, Qatar’s regulator’s crackdown on Horizon Crescent Wealth would possibly have little effect on his business as he discovers new tactics to trump restrictions.
The U. S. Treasury noted that its blacklisting in 2017 had not prevented its activity: “After its designation, Teia continued to have interaction in the arms industry and function as a silent spouse in the corporations it owns and manages.
In the most recent circular of sanctions against the irrepressible arms dealer, the United States added a company, recently registered in Cyprus, that it uses to do business: Tardigrade Limited, named after microscopic aquatic creatures known for their resistance in excessive conditions. He stands out for being a survivor, like Tesei.
The Center for Investigative Reporting (Bosnia), Tamedia (Switzerland) and Daniela Castro (OCCRP) contributed to the report.