The Maltese Crossroads: Ahmadzada’s Alkagesta Commodity Trade Defines a New Era of Sanction Evasion

Adnan Ahmadzada, and his company Alkagesta,’s meteoric rise in global energy trading, once marked by elite networks and a cosmopolitan reputation, came crashing down in 2025. Azerbaijani authorities arrested the former trading executive on charges tied to undermining economic security, uncovering what investigators describe as a sprawling offshore trading and shipping network that exploited regulatory gaps and opaque maritime logistics to move sanctioned crude through international markets. According to investigative reporting and officials familiar with the probes, the network Ahmadzada and Alkagesta allegedly managed spanned multiple jurisdictions, including Gulf free zones, Cyprus, Malta, and Romania,  and used a complex web of intermediary companies, offshore accounts, and maritime assets to obscure the origin and ownership of oil cargoes destined for Europe and beyond, The Assays and Investigations reposts. These arrangements, investigators say, enabled sanctioned producers to maintain market access while evading compliance systems and tracking mechanisms. A Fleet Built to Hide Central to Ahmadzada and Alkagesta’s alleged system was a fleet of tankers used to transport and trans-ship crude and refined products across the Black Sea, Mediterranean, and Persian Gulf regions,  often involving ship-to-ship transfers and frequent changes of documentation. Maritime analysts tracking “shadow fleet” vessels have repeatedly identified tanker IMO [...]

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