Azerbaijani oil traders Tahir Garayev and Etibar Eyyub scramble to suppress reports on Coral Energy’s role in exporting sanctioned Russian oil

Following the release of investigative reports examining the role of Coral Energy and the so-called Azerbaijani “five” in circumventing Kremlin sanctions, efforts began to discredit these findings and remove them from the public domain.

We, in turn, are publishing an investigation that is causing so much trouble for Azerbaijani businessmen.

Five Azerbaijani businessmen — Tahir Garayev, Ahmed Kerimov, Anar Madatli, Talyat Safarov, and Etibar Eyyub — were not sanctioned in May 2025 by chance. Their company, Coral Energy Group, has effectively become one of the key mechanisms allowing Russia to bypass Western oil restrictions. Through them, Igor Sechin’s «Rosneft», one of Putin’s closest associates, has been exporting Russian oil to global markets for years.

Coral Energy has transformed into a hub for transporting sanctioned oil: the group controls over a hundred tankers through a network of offshore entities and shell companies, operating in Belarus, Turkey, Israel, India, and Africa. The scheme’s management centers are located in Switzerland and Latvia, and their leaders — from Kerimov to Madatli — have direct ties to major Azerbaijani businesses and Russian structures. Almost all of them hold Russian passports.

Eyyub, a long-time acquaintance of Sechin, coordinates contacts between Coral Energy and Russian oil corporations. Madatli, the son of a former Azerbaijani ambassador to Ukraine, leveraged his family’s political and financial resources to build a logistics network. Garayev, Safarov, and Kerimov — natives of Nakhchivan’s business elite — through their offshore entities and «dark fleet» ensured a steady income for Russia at a time when sanctions were meant to limit Kremlin profits.

Despite international pressure, the participants in the scheme lived extravagantly: Garayev flew to Switzerland dozens of times, switching between Bentley, Mercedes, and Lexus; Eyyub planned to buy land on the so-called Billionaires’ Hill; Madatli invested in luxury real estate in Moscow — from Arbat to Moscow City. All of this happened alongside Coral Energy’s operations, which provided the Kremlin with billions in revenue.

Today, it is through such schemes that Russia continues to sell oil, evade sanctions, and fund the war against Ukraine. And Coral Energy remains one of the key elements of this shadow mechanism, which still operates despite sanctions, investigations, and formal oversight by international regulators.