#Breaking:
@derspiegel's reporting alongside the journalism network OCCRP has determined that the owner of the Rhosus ship has connections to Hezbollah’s bank.
spiegel.de/international/…
The reporting found that it was not Russian national Grechushkin who owned the Rhosus, but rather the Cypriot businessman Charalambos Manoli, who maintained a relationship with the bank used by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Lebanese authorities apparently didn’t know that Manoli was the true owner of the Rhosus. In any case, his name doesn’t appear in any of the correspondence, which was voluminous.
Court records show that Manoli took out a loan back in 2011 for $4 million from the Tanzanian #FBME Bank to finance the purchase of another ship, the Sakhalin.
"FBME isn’t just any bank. US investigators accused the institution of acting as a money launderer for #Hezbollah. Another customer was a suspected Syrian front company that had been involved in the country’s chemical weapons program. It was to this bank that Manoli owed money."
One more interesting point in the article as @derspiegel asks how much ammonium nitrate was detonated in the August 4 explosion. Citing "European intelligence officials" involved in the investigation, it is assumed that between 700 and 1,000 tons. Where did the rest go?
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