Tahir Garaev and his team are among the key operators of Russia’s oil exports after the start of the war. His group of traders, which grew out of Coral Energy and operated through dozens of companies in the UAE, Europe, and offshore jurisdictions, became part of the infrastructure for circumventing Western sanctions.
They provided the entire chain for trading Russian oil: chartering a “shadow fleet,” building complex networks of intermediaries, and creating shell companies. In 2024, the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on Garaev and his closest associates for constructing such schemes.
Despite the sanctions, the network linked to Garaev continues to operate and adapt, changing company names, directors, and jurisdictions. Companies controlled by his partners still trade Russian oil and carefully wind down old corporate “tails.”
As uncovered by media, Garaev has another company that has so far remained off the radar — GAMMA INVEST GROUP LIMITED, registered in the British Virgin Islands. A second company with the same name was registered in Hong Kong in 2015. The director of the BVI offshore entity is Andreas Julian Meese, who until August 2022 also headed the Swiss company Polar Energy SA, affiliated with the Latvian business of Garaev & Co — the Riga-based Venta Energy Services. Polar Energy was established in 2010 to provide services to oil-sector companies.
In 2024, Andreas Meese stepped down as director of Polar Energy and was replaced by Patrick Louis Cotasson. This top executive is directly linked to Garaev: in February 2024 he worked at Coral Energy, and earlier he was one of the heads of UniCredit’s Geneva office, serving as Head of Structured Finance and Deputy CFO, and from 2015 as a member of the bank’s management board. Around six months ago, Cotasson announced on LinkedIn that he was going independent and would help businesses establish connections between the UAE, Geneva, and the United States. However, according to Swiss registry records, Patrick Louis Cotasson remains the sole authorized signatory for Tahir Garaev’s Polar Energy SA.
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Meanwhile, after leaving Swiss Polar Energy, Andreas Meese became CFO of CE Energy Holding Dubai. The company positions itself as a mid-sized market player with a strategic focus on Africa, South America, and the Mediterranean. It recently underwent a full rebranding and now operates under the name Petrichor Energy FZCO. Its founder and director is listed as 27-year-old German citizen Christopher Eppinger, one of the youngest multimillionaires to emerge during the war years. Through his companies, Eppinger facilitated the trade of Russian oil worth $2 billion, earning at least $250 million personally. He claims he did not break the law and traded oil below the price cap.
Last year, European journalists took interest in the young trader and discovered that Eppinger comes from a family of emigrants from the USSR. At the age of 21, he began working in Kazakhstan at the state-owned corporation KazMunayGas, which closely cooperated with Gazprom and continues to maintain ties with Russian businesses, including Gazprom Neft.
In Kazakhstan, Eppinger not only learned how to conduct oil business with Russian oligarchs but also met Ilyas Tasmagambetov, the nephew of a highly influential figure — Imangali Tasmagambetov, former ambassador of Kazakhstan to Russia, former defense minister, former mayor of Astana and Almaty, and former head of the presidential administration under Nursultan Nazarbayev. Imangali Tasmagambetov is the father-in-law of businessman Kenes Rakishev, who is closely linked to Adam Kadyrov, Russian business circles, and was at one point considered the “wallet” of the Nazarbayev clan.
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