PART 2

Ling let herself sink into the plane’s seat. Why did she accept to go to the alumni meeting yesterday night, she got too much alcohol and not enough sleep and waking up at 6 this morning had been a torture, she didn’t even have time to grab something to eat. She turned to the seat on her left to see Amir already tapping like a freak on his laptop. He seemed to have better withstood the party then her, even if she had seen him drink a lot last night. Fortunately, the stewardess was distributing coffee; at last, thought Ling, she was going to wake up a bit. On her right, Ling took a short glimpse of Edouard who was calmly reading the economic section of the Times. It reminded her that she didn’t have the chance to look at the preliminary report yet. It was about time she actually informed herself on the mission. Ling took out the report from her attaché case. She was used to these now. Everytime she went on a mission she was provided with a Level 1 analyst review, “the moles” as they were called in the company as they spent their days in the office gathering information for the operating experts. Same organization as in the MI-6 she was once told in a meeting. The first part of the report was dedicated to Blackpool’s internal audit findings. She quickly went through the explanations and stopped suddenly. That is odd, she thought to herself. The data extracted from the company’s ERP software was clear: Bagpadan produces each month 200 thousand barrels of Brent Crude oil entirely sold on the London Petroleum Exchange and 30 thousand barrels of low quality sour oil. Client receivables were roughly in line with this production. Their Level 1 had commented underneath that this level of production was in line with the geological aspect of the reservoir. Ling paused a second. How can 30 thousand barrels of low quality oil be extracted each month when the inventory software states there is 600 thousand barrels of it in the warehouse? Is it an error in the software parameterization? The warehouse is dealt with automatically; robots detect oil levels in the tanks and write their results in the warehouse management software. There is little chance anyone could have modified the quantities. Ling tried to remember her recent sector formation; Brent Crude was the high-quality material extracted in clay oil reservoirs. Every barrel sold in the world was severely tracked and exchanged in London. It was hard to fraud any quality oil nowadays; a very different story from the other type of oil extracted in Bagpadan. Sour oil has high levels of sulphur which makes it unappropriate for any use except plastic production. There was no formalized market for this type of oil; a few companies in the world were buying oil of such low quality. Who could want 600 thousand barrels of it?

The rest of the report consisted in badly printed photocopies of a Russian report. There seemed to be satellite photos inserted in the report, Ling could make out what seemed trucks on a mountainous road, but couldn’t understand any word. She spotted a few words written in a quick way in the margin, it said “Look to the Antwerp strategy”; probably written by one of their analysts she thought. She turned round and asked Amir aloud “Have you ever heard of the Antwerp strategy, dear?”.  She heard a voice answering from behind her back, “The Antwerp strategy is the key to the system, juniors”. Edouard closed his newspaper and reached closer to Amir and Ling, “The Antwerp strategy is a myth and was never proven true. In the 1980s, a few big multinational companies like De Beers had a quasi-monopoly on diamond trading as they possessed virtually all the diamond and saphir mines in Africa and South America. The jewish diamond dealers of Antwerp in Belgium were paying exorbitant prices to these companies to supply their workshops. Edouard took a sip of coffee. “At that time, South Africa was still under apartheid rule and thus was under an international embargo on diamond exportations, among other stuff. Rumors at the time said that Afrikaners were illegally laundering their diamonds to the Antwerp dealers via local partners in the Mozambique diamond mines which were then sold to less regarding trade partners in Israel. These diamonds were shipped as “diamond dust” which bypassed the strict anti-blood diamond tracking system.” Ling and Amir were listening attentively now. “So, you’re saying this is what is happening right now in Bagpadan, right?" whispered Amir leaning forward. “Precisely, answered Edouard. Think about it juniors, we know rumors are spreading about Iranians laundering their oil via Azebadjian. One of our contacts in Russia has obtained proof of tankers crossing Caucasus from Iran. We know that somewhere somehow thousands of barrels of oil enter storage in Bagpadan and disappear as fast and secretly as they have appeared.” Ling laid back in her seat. She tried to visualize the process, to get the big picture. She took a few notes, drew the flowchart and tried to synthesize: so basically Iranians were sneaking oil through the Bagpadan refinement facilities and passing it for low quality oil that could be easily transferred elsewhere to non-regarding partners. She closed her eyes and asked herself how on earth people could bypass internal controls and application security to make thousand barrels vanish into nowhere. “So what are we going to do then?” asked Ling suddenly waking up. Edouard took a minute; Ling could see he was thinking hard, it didn’t seem simple at all. “We’ll see once we’re there, he replied. First, we have to understand how they managed to get through our control process and then…”, Edouard paused.”…and then we follow the barrels”, he finished, snuggling down in his seat…