No phrase moves money faster than “under sanctions”. For a trading company, a hostile search result can delay a bank’s approval, cost a vessel fixture or trigger another round of due-diligence questions from a counterparty. Because that word carries so much weight, a business has grown up around manufacturing it, and traders across the energy and commodity sectors have had to learn to tell real risk from paid noise.

The mechanics

The model is simple. A network of websites, largely in Russian and Ukrainian with English translations, accepts commissions to publish allegations about companies or individuals. The article is then mirrored across many domains, so that one placement reads like independent coverage. Once the damage is visible, removal is offered for a fee.

Independent reviewers have mapped this in detail. The Ukrainian fact-checking register Fake.net.ua describes one such network as an “information dump” working to order and names thirteen domains that recycle each other’s content. The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab found in 2021 that its main site “earned money by publishing often fabricated accusations” and “would remove them for a fee”. OSINT Global was asked for USD 12,000 in late 2024 to remove one item; earlier prices started at USD 3,000 for removal and USD 150–300 for placement. In May 2025, Ukraine’s State Service for Special Communication ordered the network’s principal domains blocked, as Korrespondent.net reported.

Who ends up in the crosshairs

Any company whose reputation has commercial value. Kazakhstan Online documented a campaign of 158 articles across 109 sites in this network aimed at Eurasian Resources Group, one of the largest mining groups in Central Asia. Mid-sized commodity traders are particularly exposed: they work across borders, rely on bank finance and chartered tonnage, and seldom have the public profile to outweigh a damaging search result. Alkagesta, a Malta-based trading group, experienced this from March 2025, when a single outlet published allegations that were then replicated across the network, even though the same outlet had noted in its first article that its earlier review of the company had turned up no irregularities.

Competition in the sector is intense, and a rival unable to compete on price or logistics can still unsettle a counterparty’s compliance desk. Sector-wide figures on “shadow fleet” tankers or sanctioned routes are placed beside a company’s name with no document connecting them, and the reader is invited to join the dots. That is how it works.

The missing evidence

Sanctions lists are public by design. OFAC, the EU, the UN, the UK and Switzerland each publish consolidated lists so that any bank or port can confirm a name within seconds. A genuine investigation leaves a case number, a regulator’s notice or a court filing. Were any of these to exist, the websites would link to them, since nothing could be more damaging.

They never do. In Alkagesta’s case, not one post in more than eighteen months has pointed to a listing, a case reference or a court record. That silence is the most dependable signal available to a reader.

What a published record looks like

The strongest reply to a fabricated claim is to make verification effortless. Alkagesta chose to publish its own screening with dates attached: as at 8 October 2026, no group entity appeared on the OFAC SDN list, the EU Consolidated List, the UN Security Council Consolidated List, the UK OFSI list or the Swiss SECO list, and neither did the controlling shareholder or directors. The screen is repeated monthly, with LSEG World-Check and Dow Jones Risk & Compliance reports published beside it. As at 28 September 2026, no court, regulator or enforcement body anywhere had recorded a proceeding against the company, and on 18 September 2026 it filed a defamation claim in Malta’s Court of Magistrates against the originating outlet.

The surrounding compliance system is typical of EU-based traders. A Maltese company trading within the EU sits under the EU sanctions regime via national law; the Sanctions Monitoring Board supervises it, and Transport Malta demands a due-diligence declaration before each vessel call. Nothing is discharged at an onshore terminal without sign-off from four authorities. A trading house then layers its own screening of banks, vessels and counterparties on top, through tools such as World-Check, Windward and Purple Trac, as Alkagesta does under its published compliance framework. A sanctioned entity could not survive inside that system for days, never mind years.

A checklist for due diligence

  • Consult the lists, not the search engine. The five official lists are free and take a minute.
  • Demand the primary document. A case number, a regulator’s statement, a court reference. A site that cannot supply one should be weighted accordingly.
  • Count sources, not domains. Ten copies of one text are one source; versioned reissues of one article are one source.
  • Use the registers. Company registries, Companies House, GLEIF and audited accounts show who owns and runs a business. A “hidden owner” claim without a register extract is not evidence.
  • Examine the publisher’s own history. Fact-checker entries, state blocking orders and documented removal fees tell you what you are reading.

Black PR only succeeds when nobody checks. Companies that have lived through it, Alkagesta included, have learned to publish the lists, the dates, the registers and the audits, and let the record answer. Orkhan Rustamov, Chief Executive Officer at Alkagesta, and the leadership team maintain that record on the company’s transparency hub.