Polish prosecutors launch search for former Orlen executives over alleged €350mn fraud

The Regional Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw initiated a search and filed charges against two former executives of Orlen Trading Switzerland, a subsidiary of the state-controlled Polish energy conglomerate, over a botched oil purchase deal worth approximately PLN1.5bn (€350mn), it said on October 9.

Samer A. and Marcin O. (Polish law prohibits providing full names of people facing charges) are believed responsible for signing off on three crude oil deals with an unfamiliar trader, whom OTS prepaid for supplies that were never delivered. The company later admitted the chances of recovering the money were slim.

"Today, the prosecutor submitted a request to the court for the temporary arrest of the suspects for three months from the date of their detention," Mateusz Martyniuk, spokesperson for the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, said in a statement.

"The charges have not been formally presented to the suspects as their whereabouts are unknown, and the evidence suggests they are in hiding. The court’s approval of their temporary arrest will allow the prosecutor to issue a search warrant for them," Martyniuk also said.

Orlen’s former CEO Daniel Obajtek had earlier ignored warnings from the company’s security services about Samer A., a Lebanese national, who was believed to "have ties to the terrorist organisation Hezbollah and involvement in illegal oil trade with Iran", the Polish news website Onet reported at the time.

Despite these concerns, Obajtek appointed Samer A. to lead OTS and is now defending his decision, saying that the company’s records about the oil deals in question do not provide grounds for investigating them.

"All Orlen Group transactions have been recorded and documented. I have not been summoned for questioning yet. But Prime Minister Donald Tusk and others have already publicly judged me,” Obajtek said on X.

The former CEO also hinted at the OTS and other investigations involving Orlen being political.

These inquiries focus on the Orlen-Lotos merger, the sale of a 30% stake in the Gdansk refinery to Saudi Aramco, alleged underpricing of fuel in autumn 2023, before the election that saw Obajtek’s political patrons, the Law and Justice (PiS) party, lose power.