One of the largest corporate losses tied to stablecoin payments has come into sharper focus after the Financial Times revealed that a failed Venezuelan oil trade financed largely in Tether’s USDt cost Poland’s state energy giant Orlen 230 million USD.
The report, published Tuesday, reconstructs how Orlen Trading Switzerland, a trading subsidiary of Poland’s state-controlled oil refiner, wired an advance payment in December 2023 to a Dubai-based intermediary to buy 6 million barrels of Venezuelan crude from the state oil company PDVSA — and how most of the money vanished into a maze of crypto transfers.
The deal was orchestrated by Samer Awad, a former executive at the Orlen trading unit. PDVSA had begun demanding partial payment in USDT as a workaround to U.S. financial sanctions, part of a broader shift by the Caracas-based company toward crypto settlement after Washington tightened restrictions on its access to the dollar system.
How 230 million USD disappeared
According to the FT’s account, Orlen sent the full advance payment to Hannon International Middle East, the Dubai-based seller, on December 4, 2023. Hannon then worked through a chain of crypto brokers to obtain the USDT needed to complete the purchase.
Hannon obtained 80 million USD in USDT from a Dubai financial services company, paying a 400,000 USD commission, according to the report. It later sent 135 million USD to Horizon Global, another Dubai firm, but claimed to receive only 85 million USD in USDT back — a 50 million USD shortfall that Horizon has contested.
A further 30 million USD went to Gold Mar International Trading, an entity Hannon expected to convert the funds and pay PDVSA. Hannon said it recovered 21 million USD of that amount in February 2024.
Then things turned stranger. In January 2024, Hannon employees reportedly handed a Caracas broker two USB sticks containing 60 million USD and 50 million USD in USDT respectively, followed by access to another 11 million USD the next month. In total, the paper trail dissipates across at least four intermediaries in three countries.
Orlen’s ship was finally loaded on March 8, 2024 — with about 500,000 barrels of fuel oil worth roughly 28.8 million USD, a fraction of the 6 million barrels contracted. The trading arm terminated the contract on March 28, 2024, having recovered barely an eighth of its advance.
Legal fallout in Poland
The failed deal is now the subject of criminal proceedings in Warsaw. The Regional Prosecutor’s Office announced an investigation in January 2025 into the oil contracts tied to Orlen Trading Services, citing damages of 1.5 billion Polish zloty — about 378 million USD.
In August 2026, three former managers at Orlen and its Swiss trading unit were indicted over crude oil contracts that caused those losses. Identified under Polish privacy laws only by their initials, the three — a former member of Orlen’s management board, a former board member of the trading subsidiary, and a former executive at both companies — face up to 25 years in prison. All have denied wrongdoing.
Hannon’s legal representative, David McCoy of ADG Legal Abu Dhabi, told Cointelegraph the firm became involved at Orlen’s request and was not responsible for the transaction’s failure. He said Hannon has taken significant steps at its own expense to recover the funds and remains open to resolving the matter amicably. The firm said it is not involved in the Polish investigation.
The sanctions shadow
The case is a high-profile example of the risks created when sanctioned state entities turn to stablecoins to bypass the traditional financial system. U.S. authorities have stepped up enforcement of crypto-based sanctions evasion, including the seizure of assets tied to Iranian oil sales, but the Orlen affair shows how quickly dollar-pegged tokens can move beyond the reach of any single regulator once they enter offshore brokerage chains.
Tether did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. The company has repeatedly said it complies with law enforcement requests and freezes tokens linked to sanctioned entities when ordered, but the Orlen affair predates much of that enforcement activity and shows how its token functioned in practice as a settlement rail for a sanctioned state oil company.
For corporate treasurers, the lesson is blunt: a payment rail that settles in minutes also disappears in minutes. Orlen paid for 6 million barrels and received about 500,000 — with the difference scattered across USB sticks in Caracas and contested transfers in Dubai.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
as a pole, 230M of public money routed through dubai brokers for venezuelan crude still boils my blood. heads need to roll at Orlen Trading Switzerland
the 400k commission on 80M in usdt is the detail that gets me. they paid a premium to lose the money faster
400k to source 80M in usdt is about half a percent just to move the money. the fee size alone tells you what kind of counterparties Hannon was dealing with
and Horizon Global got 135M and “claimed” to receive nothing back. that word claimed is doing extremely heavy lifting
and horizon got 135M and claimed it received nothing back. claimed. every verb in this story is doing overtime
claimed is my favorite verb too. 135M in, nothing back out, and Horizon Global apparently still exists as a functioning company somehow
that 400k commission on 80M in usdt is the detail polish media should be screaming about. someone signed off on that fee structure
same here. wait until sejm gets the internal risk file in open hearing, whoever signed that clearance is done
230M for six million barrels that never moved, and the dubai intermediary is the only entity anyone can name. state firms love blaming middlemen for internal failures
Sanctions created this whole chain. PDVSA could not touch dollars so it demanded USDT, and every Dubai middleman took a cut before a single barrel moved. At least the USDT trail let FT reconstruct where it went.
samer awad orchestrated the whole thing and orlen switzerland sent the full advance with zero oversight? state companies and crypto payments, worst possible combo
zero oversight is generous. awad ran it and nobody in warsaw asked why a state refiner needed a dubai shell in the middle of the deal
230 million upfront for Venezuelan oil and nobody at Orlen thought to check who Hannon actually was? that prepayment is the whole story
apparently some internal risk assessment cleared it. whatever that was worth lol
six million barrels contracted and not one barrel ever shipped. at some point thats not a failed trade, thats an exit dressed up as one
The USDT trail is doing what bank wires never could for these deals, hiding in plain sight. Tron transfers all the way down I bet
obviously Tron, its always Tron with sanctioned oil flows
PDVSA demanded USDT because sanctions locked it out of dollars, and every middleman from Dubai to Horizon took a slice before a single barrel moved. Sanctions built this maze, USDT just made it traceable after the fact
sanctions built the maze and USDT left the receipts on chain. that FT reconstruction probably took one analyst and a tronscan tab
6 million barrels, one advance wire, and the crude never showed up. the FT walking that Hannon usdt chain link by link is proper forensic work