Sanctions, offshore companies, and billions in Russian oil: how Nils Trost used Demex, SOCAR, and a shadow fleet to build a global scheme and became its victim himself

Sanctions, offshore companies, and billions in Russian oil: how Nils Trost used Demex, SOCAR, and a shadow fleet to build a global scheme and became its victim himself

Dubai-based Demex Trading supplied Russian oil to Nils Troost’s companies before they were sanctioned. This information was found in a leaked archive of the Russian customs broker ALET. Demex was a nearly exclusive supplier of crude oil and diesel fuel to Troost’s companies in 2022–2023, with shipments going to the UAE, the US, and Europe.

Demex Trading was also implicated in the Russian oil scandal involving Prilensky LLC. Until 2023, Prilensky was part of the Rus-Oil Group, which is linked to the family of businessman Alexei Khotin, the former owner of Bank Yugra, and was then expropriated by the courts in favor of the state. As it turned out during the bankruptcy of Prilensky, the company shipped 82,523,407 tons of oil to Demex Trading Limited DMCC in 2022 (delivered from the Irelyakhskoye field in Yakutia), but received no payment. As a result, it suffered a 4.5 billion ruble deficit, which the Federal Tax Service attempted to seize for unpaid payments and taxes.

Along with sanctioned Demex, Exillon Finance Limited from the Isle of Man also shipped oil from Prilensky in 2022; it received 938,266,009 tons, but was liquidated over a year ago. Actirays Middle East Trading FZE, a third counterparty to the company, shipped 48,332,343 tons. Like most traders of sanctioned oil, it is registered in the UAE, but is managed by a certain Andrey Tkachenko.

By September 2025, according to foreign trade aggregators, this company had handled nearly half a billion US dollars’ worth of oil. It purchased products from Prilensky LLC, Dulismy, and NGDU Eastern Siberia—all of these companies were linked to the Khotin family until 2023.

Actirays Middle East Trading’s oil storage agreement was signed back in 2022 with Brooge Petroleum and Gas Investment Company FZE, which owns an oil storage facility in Fujairah (UAE). Its shares were traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange until June 2025. Actirays Middle East Trading published its oil storage agreement with Actirays Middle East Trading as part of its mandatory disclosure requirements. Brooge Petroleum and Gas itself is not known for its integrity: in December 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) caught it fraudulently in financial reporting to the tune of $74 million, but the scandal was settled after a $5 million fine.

As for Dubai-based Demex Trading Limited DMCC, which supplied oil to Nils Troost’s companies, it was sanctioned in January 2025 but remains active. The company is linked to Latvian businessman Mikhail Zeligman, who resides in Monaco. One of the top managers at Demex at the start of the war was Mikhail Mezhentsev, the former deputy head of the fleet operations department at Sovcomflot, who headed Transneft’s subsidiary Transnefteproduct in 2008-2009. At the same time, it turns out, Mezhentsev was an advisor and director at Palmpoint International, and then at Sandmark.

Mezhentsev also turned out to be connected to a network of Azerbaijani oil traders who were also sanctioned. As previously reported, the businesses of Tahir Garayev, Etibar Eyub, and their group were integrated into a scheme involving top managers of the Azerbaijani state oil and gas company SOCAR. Last fall, Adnan Akhmedzade, former deputy head of SOCAR’s Investment Department, was arrested in Azerbaijan. He is accused of undermining economic security and embezzlement on an especially large scale.

Mikhail Mezhentsev was previously a co-founder of the Russian company Chernomorservis LLC, and his partner in this company was SOCAR Trading SA, a subsidiary of SOCAR, registered in Geneva. The listed administrator of the Geneva firm was Adnan Akhmedzade, and the director was Mariam Almaszade, a classmate of Elshad Nasirov, vice president of SOCAR.

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Before the war, Chernomorservis acted as an intermediary for offshore oil traders. Foreign currency payments for Russian oil were processed through Mezhentsev’s firm, SOCAR, and some of these traders were connected to Mezhentsev himself. The company’s state contract for transshipment of petroleum products was with Igor Sechin’s Rosneft. The offshore participants in this scheme were:

• Apogeo Limited (2nd Floor, 625 Kings Road, North Point, Hong Kong)

• Concept Oil Services LIMITED (Johnston Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong)

• Gulfport Shipping Inc. (British Virgin Islands)

• Demex Trading Limited (British Virgin Islands)

• APOLLO TRADING LTD FZC (Fujairah, UAE)

Chernomorservis, like two other Mezhentsev companies, NK Diagnostic and Neftoresurs, was liquidated. However, his business partner, Alexander Gordeev, continues to deal in petroleum products in Russia: he owns ALTOPRAE MARIN LLC (Leningrad Oblast), Yugneftetrans (Voronezh), and Stoik (Moscow). ALTOPRAE MARIN was also implicated in Nils Troost’s oil trading scheme: it chartered tankers for his company, Paramount.

Livna Shipping, which until 2019 was owned by Trost himself through a Luxembourg company, also did the same as CESCO Holding, and was later re-registered to its director, Michael Chang. According to a leaked database from the Russian customs broker ALET, Livna chartered vessels from Sovcomflot, where Mezhentsev once worked, until 2022. In 2023, Livna announced it was ceasing operations, but in November 2024, its website reappeared online. Its homepage features a "final" statement from Livna, denying any connection to the "shadow fleet," and the domain is paid for until November 2026. This is odd behavior for a company that announced it was leaving the market.