10 juill. 2013 - Savaro Ltd purchases 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate (AN) from Rustavi Azot, Georgia

Description:

Ammonium nitrate was purchased from Georgian chemicals factory Rustavi Azot by Savaro Limited on July 10, 2013, according to a sales contract seen by Al Jazeera. FEM says it orders via Savaro, which is registered in London and Ukraine

"The cargo, packaged in large white sacks, was worth around $700,000 at 2013 prices, according to an industry source." Reuters

The Lebanese army would later test it and confirmed that it was nitrate in its pure form – concentrated at 34.7% of nitrogen – that could be used to make explosives, but it said it did not want it (see Commerce du Levant story)

Official destination of the materials was a Mozambican explosive factory, Fabrica de Explosivos de Moçambique (FEM). An FEM representative previously told the Reuters news agency they had ordered the materials through Savaro – and therefore claimed they never owned it.

"The producer was Georgian fertilizer maker Rustavi Azot LLC, which has since been dissolved. Its owner at the time, businessman Roman Pipia, told Reuters he had lost control of the Rustavi ammonium nitrate plant in 2016. UK court documents show that the firm was forced by a creditor to auction off its assets that year.

The factory is now run by another firm, JSC Rustavi Azot, which also said it could not shed light on the cargo owner, according to the plant’s current first deputy director, Levan Burdiladze." (Reuters)

Further investigation suggests during the period up to 2016, Rustavi Azot was producing only on demand and almost entirely for Russian fertilizer firm Dreymoor, owned by Alexandr Shishkin. Unclear how Savaro was able to purchase from Rustavi (small order below discretionary threshold? corruption? arranged/approved by Dreymoor?)

Savaro, a UK registered company, has been linked by numerous reports to Russian+SYrian financier Mudalal Khouri and Syrian-Russian businessman George Haswani (Khaswaneh). The basis for this link, as reported by Al Jadid (Leb), Reuters, AJE, OCCRP is the common company address and registry agents used the Khouris/Haswanis and who ever set up Savaro in the UK. See Graham Barrow paper on these links.

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