Syria and Venezuela plotted in recent years to evade international sanctions on Syria through a secret deal to transport its crude oil through Russia to the Caribbean.
The previously undisclosed plan aimed to sell Syrian oil at a big discount to Venezuela through a Russian shell company, which would send it to Aruba for refining and distribution to gas stations in the U.S. and elsewhere, according to dozens of emails, documents and interviews.
The scheme, which hasn’t been executed, indicates the extent to which the two pariah nations are willing to go to evade international rules and antagonize global powers. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, written off repeatedly during the past six years as hundreds of thousands of his citizens have been killed in a brutal civil war, has clung firmly to power .... https://www.bloomberg.com
