Following on "Were The Bones Of The Dead At Waterloo Really Ground Into Fertilizer?".
From The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, June 30:
European countries have recently resumed imports of phosphate — a key ingredient in fertilizer — from Syria. The trade enriches sanctioned oligarchs, war profiteers, and the Syrian government, but has continued thanks to legal loopholes.
Key Findings
- Imports of Syrian phosphates into Europe have boomed over the past several years.
- The importers include Serbia and Ukraine, as well as EU members Italy, Bulgaria, Spain, and Poland.
- Ships importing Syrian phosphates showed a pattern of switching off tracking data.
- A wide variety of proxies and middlemen are also used to obscure involvement in the trade.
- Security firms linked to sanctioned war profiteers benefit from the trade.
- Senior figures from Gennady Timchenko’s Stroytransgaz worked for companies operating in Syria, despite Stroytransgaz’s denials the companies were connected.
On a warm May evening last year, a Comoros-flagged cargo ship named the Kubrosli-y disappeared from ship tracking systems off the coast of Turkey. A full week later, it reappeared near Cyprus before continuing on to dock in Ukraine.
Although tracking data offers no sign of the Kubrosli-y’s whereabouts during that week, photos posted on Facebook by a Syrian government agency two days before its reappearance provide clues to why its crew might have been keen to disguise their location.
One of the images shows Syrian oil and minerals minister Bassam Toumeh at the Mediterranean port of Tartous. Another shows the Kubrosli-y docked at one of two berths at the port that were custom-built to load phosphate, a prized mineral that has been a major economic lifeline for the sanctioned regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria has some of the largest known reserves of the increasingly sought-after fertilizer ingredient. The phosphate industry collapsed when Islamic State militants seized the country’s largest mines in 2015, but production has revived since government forces recaptured them the following year, attracting buyers even from countries opposed to Assad’s regime.
The journey of the Kubrosli-y, and the techniques it deployed, offer a glimpse into the murky supply chain of Syrian phosphates as they make their way from regions torn apart by civil war to farmers across Europe. Every step of the way, the trade enriches the Syrian state, war profiteers, and people with deep ties to Russia’s elite....
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