Markets
The Billion-Dollar Broker Who Managed a Nation’s Oil Wealth
- Court filings show how Murtaza Lakhani handled Kurdish cash
- World’s top traders used middleman as conduit to buy oil
This article is for subscribers only.
The wire transfer was just one of millions that ricochet through the global financial system every day. Starting at the Zurich branch of a Russian state bank, $800 million zipped through Citigroup Inc. in New York before landing in a small bank in Lebanon.
The payment came from Russian oil giant Rosneft PJSC –- a loan to the cash-strapped government of the breakaway region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq that would be repaid with barrels of crude.