Nearly fifty seemingly separate companies have been involved in coordinating to mask the origin of Russian oil, moving crude worth at least $90 billion, an investigation of the Financial Times has found.
FT uncovered the network due to an IT blunder—the 48 identified entities all share a single private email server.
The oil smuggling network includes firms and persons linked to Russia’s top oil producer, state-controlled Rosneft, and these have been in coordination to mask the origin of Russian crude, especially of Rosneft.
The profits are estimated very conservatively at $90 billion, but are likely much higher, according to FT’s investigation.
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The U.S. slapped sanctions on Rosneft in October 2025, effectively cutting off a major market for the Kremlin-controlled firm.
The Russians and their connections were not deterred—they intensified the smuggling operations.
Since October 2025, one company part of the network, Redwood Global Supply, has been the single biggest exporter of Russian crude oil, according to FT’s investigation.
Redwood Global Supply was sanctioned by the UK in December 2025 together with 13 other “entities and individuals involved in supporting the Russian energy sector.”
Some of the companies in the email server are already known to EU sanctions authorities for being involved in shady operations and likely helping sell Russian crude, the FT notes.
But the true scale of the smuggling operation is unclear. It’s not clear how many other persons or entities are involved, either, according to FT.
The uncovered sprawling smuggling network comes as no surprise for analysts, who say the oil trading business is so lucrative that there are always entities involved in selling sanctioned crude cargoes.
“It’s quite obvious that Rosneft and Lukoil are using the same oil marketing networks and tankers to circumvent sanctions and keep oil flowing,” Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a maritime expert at marine intelligence company Windward, told FT.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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