Russian crude disguised as Kazakh and Turkish oil: Azim Novruzov, Alkagesta and Sumato Energy routed sanctioned exports through Malta

Russian crude disguised as Kazakh and Turkish oil: Azim Novruzov, Alkagesta and Sumato Energy routed sanctioned exports through Malta

16 мая 2026 г.

Petr Pogibin

The wealthy billionaire Adnan Ahmedzade (also a British citizen) has been held in a Baku pretrial detention center since September 2025. Mr. Ahmedzade’s arrest was recently extended: the Azerbaijani Rothschild is accused of financial fraud and other crimes. A large amount of property and his extensive bank accounts have been seized. Prior to his arrest, Mr. Ahmedzade served as deputy head of the investment department of the state-owned company SOCAR.

Azerbaijani media were then filled with reports that the detained Adnan Ahmedzade had cheated Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev out of $5 billion.

And now, less than six months have passed—and they say Adnan Akhmedzade, who used to eat Neftechala black caviar with ladles, has spoken out in his prison cell! Investigative authorities have amassed a substantial dossier on his business partner, Azim Novruzov, and journalists from the renowned Maltese newspaper The Maltese Herald have also conducted their own investigations, as SOCAR operates a subsidiary on the island of Malta, dubbed Alkagesta.

Alkagesta is a major oil bunkering company, using the Birżebbuğa oil terminal for oil transportation. Along with Adnan Ahmadzade, Azim Novruzov is directly involved in Alkagesta’s turbulent activities as the owner of Sumato Energy FZE. The infamous billionaire Anar Aliyev, the former Minister of Labor and Social Protection of Azerbaijan, is also directly connected to this company. Both Novruzov and Aliyev are graduates of Nakhchivan State University. And it appears their "friendship" dates back to their student days.

It’s worth noting that Azim Novruzov’s high-profile personality attracted the attention of not only Baku’s investigative agencies but also the UK authorities. Today, EU and UK authorities are investigating Alkagesta for selling oil using forged certificates.

SOCAR branch and offshore haven

Since September 2025, journalists from The Maltese Herald have conducted several investigations into the operations of SOCAR’s Malta branch, with the active involvement of Azim Novruzov.

And Mr. Novruzov is the subject of a large number of paragraphs in these investigations, but Novruzov, hiding in London through his British lawyers, denied all accusations against him.

Azim Novruzov’s "Daguerreotype" on the pages of The Maltese Herald

Novruzov also denied having close contact with Adnan Akhmedzade.

 He claims to have met Akhmedzade when they worked at Union Grand Energy Pte Ltd (UGE).

 These meetings were not regular and were limited to trade matters. Novruzov himself left UGE in April 2013.

And he went to live with his family in the UK.

Adnan Ahm e dzade

But Maltese journalists continued to publish investigations into Alkagesta, Malta’s largest oil handling company.

And when news of a major oil sale to Nigeria from Malta emerged, it became clear that Malta had a major oil trader. Furthermore, as The Maltese Herald reported, Malta facilitates the operation of the Russian shadow fleet due to the extremely irregular movements of Maltese vessels in the Black Sea and increased activity at Hurd’s Bank (a Maltese offshore haven for the shadow fleet).

Malta is effectively a trading arm of sorts, created by SOCAR employees. They deal directly with Russian oil through a "shadow fleet" and store this oil in Malta under forged certificates supposedly issued by Turkey and Kazakhstan.

UK and EU authorities have launched a joint investigation.

Alkagesta earned €40 million in profit and has assets worth €200 million.

And there is a possibility that the Chinese oil imported into Malta for sale to third parties at Hurd’s Bank is also a Russian product.

Alkagesta has recently generated around €40 million in profits, has assets worth over €200 million, and has oil reserves estimated at up to €100 million.

Malta’s convenient location makes it ideal for accessing Libyan oil and the illicit offshore oil trade via the Hurd’s Bank offshore haven.

But the most important thing is that Alkagesta is a trading division of SOCAR.

A "British" man with a Turkish passport

So, Adnan Ahmedzade has been held in the Azerbaijani State Security Service’s pretrial detention facility for almost six months, while his partner in the Maltese cases, Azim Novruzov, has gone quiet. He sits quietly in London, communicating with journalists through his lawyers.

ENVIROINVEST LTD - LONDON

The media has already characterized Azim Novruzov as a specialist in money laundering and financial schemes. He uses bank accounts in Turkey and other jurisdictions to conduct illegal transactions. Azim Novruzov holds a Turkish passport.

Let us recall that in the recent past, Mr. Novruzov worked in London as the director of the company ENVIROINVEST.

ENVIROINVEST LTD - LONDON

However, Novruzov positions himself as a businessman with a financial background and twenty years of experience in energy markets. He is a registered shareholder of Sumato Energy FZE.

 Sumato Energy Group Ltd is a company that was listed in the late 2000s as one of the buyers of Azerbaijani oil (Azeri Light) through the ports of Ceyhan and Supsa.

The company was mentioned in investigations by OCCRP and ICIJ in the context of transactions involving SOCAR.

https://www.sgpbusiness.com/company/Sumato-Energy-Pte-Ltd

Anar Aliyev

Novruzov is also listed as a contact person for another company, which previously belonged to former Labor Minister Anar Aliyev. Mr. Aliyev, in turn, is also closely connected to the oil company SOCAR and Azim Novruzov. Anar Aliyev even found himself in a scandal over this connection several years ago.

 48 companies and a law firm in Moscow

The scandal stemmed from SOCAR’s distribution of contracts for oil production work prior to its sale to several companies. No tenders were held to distribute these orders. It was unclear how SOCAR selected the contractors. One of those involved in a large number of contractors that received orders from the state-owned company was Anar Aliyev. He was linked to 48 companies with which SOCAR had contracts.

Anar Aliyev earned over $100 million from just one of them, Socar Trading SA. And a major scandal erupted in Azerbaijan…

 But it quickly faded away: after all, the media called this Aliyev the cousin of SOCAR President Rovnag Ibrahim oglu Abdullayev.

SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev

SOCAR Trading, headquartered in Geneva, was established in late 2007 by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan and co-founded by Valery Golovushkin (founder of Lukoil Trading in Geneva) and Anar Aliyev.

SOCAR Trading sold the bulk of SOCAR’s crude oil exports from the port of Ceyhan and traded oil and petroleum products from other companies (countries).

As it turns out, Anar Aliyev also owned a law firm in Moscow for a long time. He was listed as both the founder and director of Moscow Law Agency.

The law firm was registered in August 2004.

I wonder for what purposes?

Moscow Legal Agency LLC, Moscow, INN 7707526016, OGRN 1047796645346 and other company details, address, official website, phone number — Kontur.Fokus

In addition to Anar Aliyev, a certain Fakhraddin Ismailov was also listed as the company’s director. The company’s shareholder was the offshore company Gulf Geofizik FZC, and its shareholder was a certain Middle East Geophysics Corp.

The creation of SOCAR Trading significantly increased the efficiency of crude oil exports to international markets. Since 2010, SOCAR Trading has been purchasing 70 million barrels of oil annually from Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia and selling it on the market.

It turns out that they started more than 15 years ago?

Rendezvous with Igor Sechin

Incidentally, former SOCAR top manager Ahmedzade (in addition to his shady Maltese dealings with Novruzov) is now accused of blending Azeri Light crude oil with other grades of crude, damaging the reputation of Azerbaijan’s oil industry. Azeri Light crude oil is transported via the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline to Italy and Romania.

Adnan Ahmedzade with his friend, footballer Lionel Messi

Apparently, the punishment will be very severe.

Akhmedzade also had a company, Caspian Logistics Solutions (CLS).

https://eldala.kz/dannye/kompanii/4131-caspian-logistic-solutions

The company was also involved in the supply of Russian oil.

Adnan Ahmedzade’s Azerbaijani passport

The company’s partners included both covert and overt Russian oil transporters. Among them was Oil Mar DMCC. This company, along with Alkagesta, was implicated in a dispute over the transportation of over 22,000 tons of Russian oil to Albania. Alkagesta also attempted to ship Russian oil to Spain via the port of Tarragona, but the attempt was blocked by Spanish authorities.

Maltese journalists have nevertheless traced very close ties between Adnan Akhmedzade and Azim Novruzov.

 And they even found out that it was Adnan Akhmedzade who introduced Azim Novruzov to the head of Rosneft Oil Company, Igor Sechin.

Igor Sechin

Therefore, it is probably no coincidence that the name of Azim Novruzov is increasingly mentioned in the context of business structures associated with the "shadow fleet."

The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) is conducting an internal investigation into Azim Novruzov.

All in all, a great show! Time to get closer to Adnan Ahmedzade?