Orlen's company was packed with service agents who did not realize that they were dealing with illegal business and large-scale theft of money – said former president of PGNiG Piotr Woźniak, referring to the PLN 1.5 billion loss of Orlen Trading Switzerland. As he recalled, the Orlen Group lost even more, as much as PLN 10 billion, on investments in petrochemicals.
Orlen at the beginning of April this year. reported a loss of almost PLN 1.6 billion by the previous management board of Orlen Trading Switzerland, a Swiss company managed by the Orlen Group. These are advance payments made to intermediaries involved in crude oil trading. He was supposed to receive the most money 25-year-old from Hong Kongwho had founded a company in Dubai just a few years earlier.
According to Onet reports, even before OTS was established security services warned that it could be a fraud attempt. “It cannot be ruled out that the project is aimed at withdrawing funds from PKN Orlen, and therefore there is a high risk of embezzlement” – according to the portal's findings, such a secret note was sent to the most important people in the country during the rule of Law and Justice. However, Orlen's management board did not address this matter.
The OTS scandal and the “collapse of state institutions”
Piotr Woźniak, former president of PGNiG, commented on the matter in an interview with TVN24 BIS, emphasizing that the PLN 1.5 billion write-off of Orlen's company is probably irreversible. He added that what should be an even greater concern is the fact that the activities of OTS were monitored by the Polish services, which were unable to detect that they were dealing with fraud.
– My biggest concern is that this company was packed with secret service agents. They did not realize that they were dealing with a fraud and theft of money on a large scale. – said Woźniak.
– The state institutions have fallen very low here, they are unable to notice it. This disqualifies state services and institutions, he added.
Woźniak admitted that in the case of OTS “we are dealing with catching a thief by the hand.” – It is known that someone paid an advance payment and was unable to collect the goods. To whom this money was transferred is sensational data, he said.
According to information from the Onet website, the Control and Security Office (BKiB) did not leave a stone unturned on the idea of establishing an OTS. As reported, among the potential threats was the risk of using Orlen's Swiss company to participate in the trade in oil from countries subject to an international embargo, such as Iran.
“This is because Samer A., from Lebanon, was to be employed as the president of Orlen Trading System. As he claims in internal BKiB documents, he is suspected of contacts with the terrorist organization Hezbollah, financed by Iran, and is additionally involved in oil trading. coming from this country,” writes Onet.
A gigantic write-off of Orlen
The former head of PGNiG pointed out that an even more important issue is the loss due to the unsuccessful investment in petrochemicals, which Orlen recently announced. This concerns PLN 10.2 billion of impairment losses, which the company will include in the financial statements for the previous year.
– PLN 10 billion is a world record, large companies such as Shell and BP, when they have a loss of EUR 2 billion, is a basis to shake up the company's quotations on the stock exchange, and here in Poland it is as if nothing had happened – he said.
Main photo source: TVN24