In a world where prohibitions exist, there will always be people offering services to circumvent them. And this is not at all about drug or arms markets. We’re talking about the oil market, where some countries attempt to pressure others through sanctions with a zeal that could be better applied elsewhere.

In the murky waters of global economic wars, one person is fishing for profit, someone about whom little is known, which is surprising given the scale of their operations. This is Latvian entrepreneur Mikhail Zeligman, whose services are sought by Russian players in the oil products market, who have faced a barrage of sanctions in recent years, significantly complicating their lives.

His name rarely appears in the news, yet journalistic investigations link Mikhail Zeligman to major contracts for Russian oil, managers of the Russian pipeline system, and raw material trading schemes that have become particularly in demand since the imposition of sanctions against Russia.

Little is known about the early period of Mikhail Zeligman’s career (in some sources, he is referred to as Zeligmans). More or less reliable information about him dates back to the early 2000s when Zeligman emerged among major oil traders as the founder of Concept Oil Services, a company engaged in the purchase and resale of oil and oil products from former Soviet countries.

Considering that at this point Mikhail Zeligman was only 25 years old (he was born in 1976), and there is no clear explanation for the origin of his capital or the presence of connections in the upper echelons of power in Russia and Kazakhstan—where the main raw materials came from—his rapid breakthrough into a highly competitive market already raises many questions.

Concept Oil Services was registered in Hong Kong and quickly transformed into a major trader with an annual turnover of several billion dollars. Its primary suppliers of oil were Russian and Kazakh companies, whose raw materials Concept Oil Services resold on global markets.

At the same time, the company remained almost unknown to the general public, which is atypical for major global traders like Vitol or Trafigura. Journalists began paying attention to Zeligman after his company started regularly appearing in large export deals involving Russian oil.

Zeligman’s emergence on the Russian oil market

The first “warning sign” that something was amiss with Concept Oil Services was the story surrounding the “Druzhba” oil pipeline. In the early 2010s, Polish observers noticed unusual fluctuations in the distribution of oil supply volumes. Companies collaborating with Concept Oil Services unexpectedly received additional volumes of raw materials, while supplies to other buyers could be reduced.

Such fluctuations are hard to explain by ordinary market competition. In the oil industry, this led to speculation that the trader might have had access to administrative resources within the Russian oil transportation system.

These suspicions were quickly confirmed, as Concept Oil Services surged into the top ranks of companies receiving raw materials from Russian producers. For instance, “Bashneft” signed a series of contracts with Concept Oil Services between 2013 and 2016, with a total value exceeding three billion dollars. For a relatively unknown company, such deals seemed unusual. Typically, export contracts of this scale are awarded to the largest international trading houses.

It’s important to understand that Concept Oil Services was not buying Russian oil for itself. It purchased it for resale, which, under sanctions, posed certain difficulties. Nevertheless, Mikhail Zeligman successfully navigated these challenges, and the sanctions of that period were more of a formality than a real obstacle. However, this experience prepared Mikhail Zeligman for the period after 2022, when sanctions became far more tangible.

Recall that the first sanctions were imposed on Russia in 2014, and it was in that year that Concept Oil Services’ contracts multiplied significantly. This allowed the company to become one of the largest buyers of Russian oil.

Meanwhile, Concept Oil Services continued to increase the volume of contracts with Russian producers. This even prompted competitors to seek justice in courts. For instance, in 2017, the oil company “Dulisma” attempted to sue Concept Oil Services, claiming that the latter “effectively controls the market for purchasing oil from small producers exporting raw materials through the Far Eastern port of Kozmino—a key terminal for oil supplies to Asia.”

The arbitration court, to which “Dulisma” appealed with a demand to limit Concept Oil Services’ ability to set oil prices and thereby influence trading conditions, did not heed the plaintiff’s arguments. However, what’s interesting here is something else—during the trial, a representative of “Dulisma” claimed that Concept Oil Services was reselling oil to a Swiss company, Tenergy Trading. Swiss journalists have linked the latter to Gennadiy Timchenko, a friend of the Russian president. In 2018, Concept Oil Services supplied oil worth 2.2 billion dollars to Switzerland, and in the first eight months of the war in 2022, it supplied oil worth 3.2 billion dollars.

Attempts by “oil small fry” to achieve justice were predictably unsuccessful, but they sparked interest in the activities of Concept Oil Services and the figure of Mikhail Zeligman. It turned out that both the company and its owner are closely tied to the leadership of the Russian pipeline monopoly “Transneft.”

According to industry sources, behind the company stand individuals from the entourage of former First Vice President of “Transneft” Mikhail Arustamov, as well as relatives of the company’s head, Nikolai Tokarev. It was during this period of collaboration that the trader Concept Oil Services gained access to key infrastructure—export pipelines and terminals.

Oil in the Era of major sanctions

After the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the oil market changed dramatically. And it was here that a window of opportunity opened for Mikhail Zeligman, which he immediately seized. Moreover, he was prepared for such a turn of events, even though the harsh sanctions came as a surprise to Russian elites.

Major Western traders began refusing to work with Russian raw materials. The vacated space was filled by lesser-known companies, many of which are registered in Dubai, Hong Kong, or other offshore jurisdictions.

One such trader was Concept Oil Services, which found itself among the largest buyers of Russian oil during this period—the period of “soft” sanctions. During this time, Zeligman successfully expanded his presence in the Russian oil market, managing to establish supply chains and sales channels for not entirely “clean” Russian raw materials.

This experience proved invaluable—according to investigations, in the first eight months of 2022 alone, the company purchased Russian raw materials worth approximately 3.2 billion dollars. Moreover, Russian companies were very willing to make concessions, as it became much harder to sell raw materials, and the domestic market turned out to be oversaturated.

Furthermore, Mikhail Zeligman did not limit himself to just one company, prudently believing that it had already been exposed and would sooner or later face problems. At least one other trader is known—Demex Trading in Dubai, which researchers also link to Zeligman’s business structures.

After 2022, there was a certain pause—Zeligman was practically forgotten. But in 2025–2026, a new series of publications appeared in the media, claiming that Mikhail Zeligman’s business had become one of the largest private schemes for trading Russian oil after the imposition of Western sanctions.

According to investigations, starting from January 2025, over 115 million barrels of Russian oil were sold through structures associated with the entrepreneur. The total volume of transactions is estimated at approximately 7 billion dollars.

According to these materials, the supply scheme worked as follows: oil was loaded at the Russian export terminal Kozmino in the Far East (the very same terminal Zeligman “cleared” of competitors), then tankers from the “shadow fleet” delivered it to China and other Asian countries. Supplies were carried out through a network of trading companies and intermediaries, some of whose names have leaked into the public domain.

Initially, operations were conducted through the trading company Eterra Trading. However, after the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on it in January 2025, operations were quickly transferred to another structure—Paradigm International—allowing trading to continue without significant interruptions.

Among the vessels of the “shadow fleet” used by Zeligman’s companies are tankers named Ling Hong and Lucky Fairy, which were used to transport batches of Russian oil to Asian ports.

However, this data is not officially confirmed, which allows Mikhail Zeligman to continue operating in the oil trading market. His companies are registered in various jurisdictions, including Hong Kong, Cyprus, and offshore financial centers.

Investments in European real estate

The entrepreneur himself, as reported, resides in Monaco and prefers to conduct business outside the public eye, investing money earned from Russian oil into European real estate.

Journalists discovered that structures associated with Zeligman have invested funds in real estate in Germany and Austria. One such project is the Berlin complex Pier 61-64, which includes a hotel, apartments, and commercial spaces.

According to the investigation, the ultimate investor in the project turned out to be Zeligman himself. According to the authors of the publications, profits may have been funneled through an Austrian structure, Heartbeat mildtätige Privatstiftung, which positions itself as a charitable foundation. Through this structure, funds were directed into European projects, including infrastructure and technology facilities in Germany, such as data center projects.

Most likely, this data is accurate. Or perhaps the investigators stumbled upon one of the key schemes for laundering Mikhail Zeligman’s capital. After this information appeared in the press, Zeligman began actively defending himself against the publications, using the most reliable method in Europe—the judicial system.

In 2023, Mikhail Zeligman won a legal case in Germany against a group of activists who attempted to link his oil business to investment projects in Potsdam. This temporarily halted some of the public investigations surrounding his German assets.

As for other consequences, there have been none for Mikhail Zeligman. His name does not appear in criminal cases, nor is it on the sanctions lists of the European Union or the United States. Moreover, his name is not even on Ukraine’s sanctions lists, a country that should be keenly interested in blocking channels for the sale of Russian oil.

And this last fact probably raises the most questions. It creates the impression that Mikhail Zeligman is of greater interest to journalists in Western countries than to the state authorities of a country that should have long ago systematically investigated the schemes allowing its enemy to earn money to kill its own citizens.