No one can prove that the president's nice teeth are important for the business of a large company – said Deputy Minister of State Assets Robert Kropiwnicki in the “Jed na Jedno” program on TVN24, referring to suspicious expenses on aesthetic medicine in Orlen. The topic of the conversation was also ORLEN Trading Switzerland. When asked whether Daniel Obajtek could be charged in connection with the incident, the deputy head of the ministry replied that “analyses are ongoing.”
On Wednesday, the prosecutor's office issued decisions to bring charges against former members of the management board of ORLEN Trading Switzerland GmbH, Samer A. and Marcin O.
Billions lost
When asked if we know where Samer A. is, he replied that it is not known yet. – I don't know, the company doesn't know, maybe the services know. Only when an arrest warrant is issued will it be possible to start looking for him, he said.
Robert Kropiwnicki was also asked how it was possible that someone who was supposedly connected to Hezbollah was employed by Orlen. – You should ask those who employed him that half a billion advance payments were spent on goods that were not known whether they would arrive – he said.
When asked if there was a chance to recover the money in this case, he said that “the company is working on it.”
He was asked whether he could face charges in this case Daniel Obajtekreplied that “analysis is ongoing in this matter.” – The company received special rights from the management board – he argued.
Suspicious expenses in Orlen
As Orlen announced on Tuesday, with the support of external audit companies and law firms, the company “is carrying out a detailed review of the capital group's activities for the period from January 2016 to February 2024″, and over 50 inspections and audits have already been completed, and ” the other two are still in progress.”
Orlen reported, among other things, that one of the notifications submitted to the prosecutor's office “is the result of an inspection that revealed 221 cases of misappropriation of funds belonging to the company.” As explained, members of the former Orlen management board, without business justification, allegedly spent a total of PLN 43 million.
“The expenses of the former president of the company's management board included, among others, prosthetic and aesthetic medicine services, for which there is a reasonable suspicion that they were not covered by the established management package and should not have been paid using a company payment card,” the company reported.
According to her, the inspectors also considered detective services commissioned by Orlen to be unauthorized. The company also stated that during the inspection it was found that not only did they have no economic justification, but they also served to obtain materials on, among others, members of the then parliamentary opposition.
Kropiwnicki referred to the issue of the management board's expenses, including those for aesthetic medicine, from the company's funds. – It was an abuse of powers within the meaning of the Penal Code. This was an unjustified expenditure of company funds. No one can prove that the president's nice teeth are important for the business of a large company, he said.
Oil supplies that didn't exist
Orlen in the first half of April this year. announced a loss of approximately PLN 1.6 billion by the previous management board of Orlen Trading Switzerland (OTS), a Swiss company belonging to the Orlen Group. These are advances paid to oil trading intermediaries. The largest amount of funds was to go to a 25-year-old from Hong Kong who had founded his own company in Dubai a few years earlier. Most deliveries were to be completed by the end of 2023, and the remaining deliveries by the end of January 2024. That didn't happen.
In April this year There were media reports regarding the Swiss company Orlen OTS. In mid-April this year. “Rzeczpospolita” wrote that the Internal Security Agency tried to block the appointment of Samer A as president of Orlen Trading Switzerland in 2022. The reason was suspected of Arab extremism. The Onet portal informed about warnings coming from Orlen's internal security services. These indicated that it came from Lebanon Samer A. is suspected of contacts with the terrorist organization Hezbollah and involved in illegal oil trade with Iran. “Obajtek ignored these warnings and placed Samer A. in charge of Orlen Trader Switzerland (OTS). As a result, Orlen lost PLN 1.6 billion, which became public only after PiS lost power and Obajtek was dismissed,” the portal reported.
Main photo source: PAP/Leszek Szymański