Poland’s $230mn Crypto Oil Gamble Shows the Hidden Cost of Sanctions Evasion

15 September 2026 | By Anthony Gill — EBM Newsdesk Analysis

Poland thought it had found a way to buy Venezuelan oil while navigating a sanctions regime that made conventional payments difficult. Instead, a state-backed energy company ended up sending $230mn to an intermediary, receiving almost none of the oil it had contracted for and becoming embroiled in one of the more extraordinary corporate governance failures to hit a European energy group in recent years.

The deal involved Orlen Trading Switzerland (OTS), the Swiss trading arm of Poland’s state-backed energy company Orlen. In late 2023, OTS agreed to buy roughly six million barrels of Venezuelan oil worth about $345mn through intermediaries including Hannon International. The transaction was taking place during a temporary easing of US sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry, creating a narrow window in which European companies could once again attempt to access Venezuelan crude.

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The problem was the way the money moved. According to reporting on the investigation, OTS transferred around $230mn to Hannon, while a further $100mn went to another Dubai-based intermediary, Horizon Global. Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA did not receive the expected payments and the promised crude did not arrive. Polish investigators now believe cryptocurrency transactions were involved in the movement of at least some of the money, with stablecoins such as USDT providing a way of moving funds outside conventional banking channels.