FT Reports $230M Project Failure

Tether’s USDt appears to have played a central role in a Venezuelan crude oil deal that went badly wrong for Poland’s largest energy company. According to the Financial Times, the stablecoin was used in a failed transaction tied to state energy firm PDVSA, leaving Orlen—via its trading arm—out of an advance payment totaling $230 million in late 2023.

The episode highlights both the promise and the fragility of stablecoin rails in high-risk international settlement scenarios, especially where traditional banking routes are constrained by sanctions. It also raises fresh questions about where value went once funds entered crypto intermediaries.

Key takeaways

• Financial Times reports that a $230 million advance in a Venezuelan oil contract was largely paid using Tether USDt (USDT), before Orlen received only a small portion of the cargo value.
• The FT says PDVSA began requesting partial payments in USDT as a workaround to US financial sanctions.
• Reported payment trails involved multiple Dubai- and Caracas-linked intermediaries, with later disputes over how much USDT was actually transferred.
• Legal action followed: Warsaw prosecutors opened an investigation in January 2025 for losses linked to Orlen Trading Services, and later reporting said former executives were indicted.
• Hannon’s legal representative told Cointelegraph that Hannon was not responsible for the failure and said it is pursuing recovery efforts.

How USDT entered the PDVSA oil payments

Earlier coverage described how Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA sought to accelerate a shift toward cryptocurrencies amid sanctions pressure. In the disputed arrangement, PDVSA began demanding partial payments in USDT to bypass restrictions affecting access to US-linked financial channels, as Reuters reported in April 2024: Venezuela accelerate cryptocurrency shift oil sanctions return 2024.

Against that backdrop, Financial Times reported that Orlen Trading Switzerland (OTS)—a trading subsidiary of Poland’s state-controlled energy giant Orlen—entered a contract to buy 6 million barrels of Venezuelan crude in November 2023. The FT said the oil trade was orchestrated by Samer Awad, a former executive at OTS.

According to the FT, OTS transferred a $230 million advance payment largely in USDT to a Dubai-based seller, Hannon International Middle East, on Dec. 4, 2023. The contract was later canceled after Orlen received only about $29 million worth of oil.

Missing funds and disputes among intermediaries

Financial Times’ reporting centers on what happened after the initial USDT-based payment. The FT said Hannon attempted to source the USDT needed for the purchase by working through various crypto brokers and intermediaries. Instead of clean settlement, the funds appear to have fragmented across multiple transfers, with most allegedly vanishing into a complicated sequence of transactions.

Cointelegraph sought comment from Tether and Orlen, but the article’s included material focuses on the response from Hannon’s legal counsel. David McCoy, managing partner at ADG Legal Abu Dhabi and Hannon’s legal representative, told Cointelegraph that “Hannon became involved in the transaction at Orlen’s request” and that Hannon was not responsible for “the transaction’s failure.” He added that Hannon has taken steps, at its own expense, to recover funds and remains open to resolving the dispute with Orlen: the quoted remarks were provided directly in the source coverage.

The payment-flow narrative described by the Financial Times includes several USDT movements and later contradictions:

• The FT reported that Hannon obtained $80 million in USDT and paid a $400,000 commission to a Dubai-based financial services company he had dealt with previously.
• Hannon later reportedly sent $135 million to Dubai-based Horizon Global, but claimed it only received $85 million in USDT—creating a stated $50 million shortfall. Horizon disputed those claims.
• Hannon also reportedly sent $30 million to Gold Mar International Trading, expecting a USDT conversion and further onward payment to PDVSA. Hannon said it later recovered $21 million of the USDT from Gold Mar in February 2024.
• The FT further alleged that, in January 2024, Hannon employees provided Caracas brokers with USB sticks containing $60 million and $50 million in USDT. It also alleged an additional handover of $11 million to another Caracas broker the following month.

By March 8, the FT said Orlen’s ship was loaded with about 500,000 barrels of fuel oil valued around $28.8 million—far short of what the advance implied. The same day, it said another $11 million in USDT was allegedly delivered to a broker. Ultimately, Orlen Trading Services terminated the contract with Hannon on March 28, 2024.

Legal fallout in Poland and shifting accountability

While the Financial Times story traces the movement of value through crypto intermediaries, the legal response unfolded in parallel. In January 2025, the Warsaw Regional Prosecutor’s Office announced an investigation into actions related to Orlen Trading Services contracts and damage calculations described as 1.5 billion Polish zloty (about $378 million). The announcement was published by the prosecutor’s office here: Warsaw Prosecutor’s Office investigation status.

McCoy told Cointelegraph that Hannon was not involved in Poland’s investigation and therefore could not comment on it.

Subsequent reporting cited criminal proceedings and potential exposure for individual defendants. In August 2026, Reuters reported that Poland’s former Orlen managers were facing trial over oil deal losses, stating that three former managers were indicted. The Reuters report was included in the source material: Reuters: former Orlen managers face trial over oil deal losses.

According to the included Reuters summary, the accused—identified under Polish privacy rules by last initial—denied wrongdoing, and each reportedly faced up to 25 years in prison.

Why this matters for stablecoin use in sanctioned trade

This case is not just another dispute about a failed commercial contract. It offers a practical illustration of what can go wrong when stablecoins are used as an alternative settlement channel without the transparency and operational controls that large, regulated institutions often rely on.

Financial Times’ account suggests that USDT helped enable a payment arrangement under sanctions constraints, but the transaction’s outcome hinged on intermediary execution—where funds allegedly fragmented, and where later parties contested how much USDT actually changed hands. For market participants, the lesson is less about whether stablecoins can function as a settlement tool, and more about how counterparty risk, settlement wiring, and reconciliation processes behave when intermediaries and off-ledger steps proliferate.

At the same time, Hannon’s reported stance—seeking recovery while arguing it was not responsible for the failure—shows how quickly responsibility can become contested once on-chain or token-based transfers fail to produce the expected underlying goods movement.

With prosecutions and investigations continuing, the next turning point will likely be whether authorities and courts can map the complex flow of USDT across counterparties with enough clarity to assign responsibility.

Readers should watch for developments in the Polish case—especially any findings that clarify where the alleged USDT shortfalls occurred and how the payment steps were designed—because those details will determine whether the episode reads as an intermediary failure, a governance breakdown, or something closer to planned circumvention.