Russia’s Shadow Fleet Sails on D.C.

Welcome to Whale Hunting, a weekly newsletter and podcast delving into the hidden worlds of wealth and power from the team at Project Brazen. For more of Project Brazen's work – including the Tribeca-selected podcast Spy Valley, and Fur & Loathing, the bizarre story of an unsolved US chemical weapons attack – visit brazen.fm.

In December, we published our reporting on Coral Energy (now known as 2Rivers Group), a relatively new player in the commodities trading company, was at the center of an intricate web of companies created to help Russia evade sanctions and transport its most precious export across the world. If you missed that story, read it first at mysteryships.projectbrazen.com.

It seems that the Russian shadow fleet allegedly run by the Dubai-headquartered Coral Energy, now renamed 2Rivers Group, is hoping to get into President Trump’s good books after some of its tankers were hit-hard by U.S. sanctions in the final days of Joe Biden’s presidency.

2Rivers representatives, including financial director Ahmed Kerimov, were spotted in Washington D.C. in late January allegedly attempting to organize a meeting with the new presidential administration to discuss sanctions and funding for the war in Ukraine. A spokesperson for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Anatoliy Amelin, co-founder of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, told Whale Hunting he had heard about the lobbying tour from multiple sources in the know. He also alleged that there were more than 200 companies who manage the Russian shadow fleet, but 2Rivers is the main operator.