The Pentagon has come under investigation over a fuel supplier for the U.S. consulate in Iraq
The U.S. government bought millions of dollars worth of fuel for its consulate in northern Iraq from a company whose local subcontractor on the deal was owned by a man described by a U.S. official as a front in a company for two blacklisted Lebanese brothers, documents show.
The findings, based on contracts, court documents, public records, and corporate filings, raise questions about the thoroughness of the U.S. government’s due diligence over the beneficiaries of a contract to supply fuel to a critical diplomatic post in a volatile country.
In August 2022, a U.S. Department of Defense agency awarded a $2.7 million contract to Swiss-based Rhomax International AG for the supply of fuel to the U.S. consulate in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.
According to documents filed with the U.S. government, Rhomax subcontracted storage and distribution of the fuel to Tavrons Ltd, an oil logistics company registered in Cyprus and owned and directed at the time by Lebanese national Ibrahim Zaouk.
Only eight months later, another branch of the U.S. government, the Treasury Department, sanctioned a Dubai company owned by Zaouk, ZR Energy DMCC, for its alleged role in a fuel scandal in Lebanon that damaged power plants and worsened electricity outages.
A Treasury official alleged at the time of its blacklisting that ZR Energy DMCC was actually controlled by the wealthy Lebanese brothers Raymond Zina Rahme and Teddy Zina Rahme, despite being owned by “a business associate” of theirs – a reference to Zaouk, who was the on-paper owner of the company. The Rahme brothers and Zaouk have multiple business connections, reporters found.
The brothers and three companies allegedly under their control, including ZR Energy DMCC, were sanctioned over the Lebanese fuel scandal. (Zaouk was not sanctioned.)
A thoroughfare in the center of Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Rahme brothers had leveraged their “wealth, power, and influence to engage in corrupt practices” that enabled them to enrich themselves at the expense of ordinary citizens, who were under severe economic duress and faced a critical energy crisis, the sanctions notice said.
Contract payments to Rhomax continued for over two years after the sanctions, lasting until at least August 2025, U.S. contracting sites show. Reporters could see no change in the contract naming Tavrons as subcontractor over that time, indicating it continued to receive payments during the same period.
That would mean the Pentagon was indirectly paying a company owned by someone Treasury officials considered to be a proxy for people under sanctions for allegedly contributing to “breakdown of the rule of law in Lebanon,” an important U.S. ally in the region.
It is unlikely the payments violated U.S. sanctions, but should still be a cause for concern, according to Emily Patterson, co-founder of the State Capture Accountability Project, a nonprofit focused on corruption and the rule of law.
“There doesn’t appear to be evidence that [the Pentagon] transacted with a sanctioned entity, but it’s concerning that they engaged in business with an entity that is so close to recently designated individuals,” Patterson told OCCRP.
An aerial view of the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, in 2021.
When reached for comment, a lawyer for Zaouk denied he had ever acted as a “front man” for the Rahmes, and said he did not not understand why ZR Energy DMCC was sanctioned.
A lawyer for the Rahme brothers told OCCRP they had “no ownership nor operational involvement in ZR Energy DMCC,” and their only role in the company was securing “financial guarantees with Lebanese banks, which were cancelled by early 2020.”
The lawyer strongly denied the allegations about the fuel scandal in Lebanon that underpinned the U.S. sanctions, and said the case had been “thoroughly reviewed by multiple levels of the Lebanese judiciary” that found it was based on “false statements and forged laboratory tests” carried out by third parties.
The brothers’ lawyer said the U.S. sanctions were based on false information, but despite that, the Rahmes “have fully complied with the content and effects of the said listing decisions."
Beyond the sanctions, reporters found additional evidence of business and personnel links between the Rahme brothers and the subcontractor Tavrons.
Transparency International’s Senior Researcher Colby Goodman said vetting subcontractors has been “a longstanding challenge” for the U.S. government.
The immediate contractor is “supposed to ensure the subcontractors comply with U.S. law,” Goodman said, but that can be difficult because as sanctions have increased it has become harder to trace ownership through secretive corporate structures.
The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which awarded the contract, did not respond to a request for comment.
“Mr. Zaouk disputes any implication that there was anything improper with this contract or any services that Tavrons provided,” Zaouk’s lawyers said in a statement.
The lawyer for the Rahme brothers said: "No ownership, directorship, or management ties exist between Rahmes and Tavrons, Rhomax, or their affiliates.”
Rhomax did not respond to a request for comment. The company’s director until July 2025, Geoffrey Maurits Meyers, told OCCRP that “Rhomax participated in the relevant tender process, complied with the applicable requirements, was awarded the contract on its own merits, and subsequently performed its contractual obligations in accordance with the contract requirements.”
He emphatically denied any connection to the Rahmes, saying he “never had any business relationship with” the brothers.
‘Nominally Registered’
Though separate on paper, the Rahme brothers’ businesses and subcontractor Tavrons were linked by common directors, employees, firms, and millions of dollars in shared corporate interests – and most notably by Zaouk. The Rahmes and Zaouk have multiple business connections, reporters found.
Tavrons has not been publicly linked to the Rahmes and was not sanctioned by the U.S.
But in April 2023, eight months after the DLA inked the contract with Rhomax, then-U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson alleged ZR Energy DMCC was in fact owned by a proxy for the brothers. While he was not named by Nelson, Zaouk was the long-time owner and director of the company.
“Although ZR Energy DMCC is nominally registered as owned by a Rahme business associate in the UAE, make no mistake, it is controlled by the Rahme brothers,” Nelson said in a press conference announcing the sanctions.
Screenshot from the Rahme brothers’ old company website, accessed via web archive.
According to the sanctions notice, ZR Energy DMCC was allegedly being used by the brothers to pass off “their dangerously compromised fuel product by blending it with other fuels” in Lebanon.
Zaouk and the Rahmes were also all involved in a Lebanese offshore company, Middle East Petroleum Services (MEP) – in 2017 the company’s chairman was Teddy Rahme, while Raymond Rahme and Zaouk were on its board.
In March 2017 MEP acquired a 55 percent stake in Ronin Company for General Trading and Sale of Petroleum Products Ltd, registered in Iraqi Kurdistan. Ronin was absorbed by Tavrons at no cost in June 2022, a few months before Rhomax won the DLA contract.
Ronin was embroiled in a 2020 controversy over the supply of fuel to the U.S. Air Force at Erbil International Airport.
Controversy Over Alleged Supply of Iranian Fuel
Ronin was the sole fuel trader named in an agreement to supply the Kurdish firm Triple Arrow, which had been subcontracted on massive contracts to provide fuel to the U.S. airport base from 2016 to 2020.
A U.S. government official told OCCRP the fuel supplied by the Kurdish firm Triple Arrow came from Iran, suggesting Ronin was supplying Iranian fuel.
In October 2020, the U.S. Air Force Brigadier General serving as chief of staff for the American mission in Iraq issued a memo banning Triple Arrow and its staff from accessing U.S. bases.
The memo said Triple Arrow posed an “unacceptable risk to U.S. national interests, missions, personnel and facilities.”
Zaouk’s lawyers denied he had knowledge of Triple Arrow’s security threat status. The Rahmes’ lawyer said the brothers “have no connection of any kind with Triple Arrow.”
A September 2021 letter shows Triple Arrow’s CEO was, at that time, a Kurdish businessman named Mohammed Bradosti. (It’s not clear how long Bradosti served as the company’s CEO.)
Today, Bradosti, who did not respond to a request for comment, is a member of Kurdish parliament.
A month after Triple Arrow was blacklisted, Bradosti loaned $9 million to Tavrons, according to a company financial statement
The loan was part of a planned deal to acquire shares of Tavrons, the document shows.
It does not appear Bradosti actually acquired any shares of Tavrons. Available corporate records don’t list him as a shareholder.
“That transaction was never finalized,” Zaouk’s lawyers said. “The memorandum of understanding was terminated, and the loan was kept as a liability.”
Zaouk’s lawyers denied the Rahme brothers had ever controlled Ronin Petroleum or MEP. Zaouk established MEP and “holds majority ownership (more than 99%) in the company,” his lawyer said.
Teddy and Raymond Rahme each obtained a single share in MEP and joined its board after having “facilitated financing for MEP’s business,” Zaouk’s lawyer said.
Paperwork reveals other ways in which Tavrons and ZR Energy DMCC — the company the U.S. Treasury official Nelson alleged was “nominally registered” to Zaouk but in fact “controlled by the Rahme brothers” — are closely connected: ZR Energy DMCC is identified in Tavrons’ financial statements as a “related company,” indicating shared ownership or management.
And ZR Energy DMCC provided Tavrons with tens of millions of dollars in interest free loans, according to the same documents.
Tavrons’ website promotes its fuel storage facilities.
The Rahmes’ lawyer said the brothers “have no connection of any kind with…Tavrons.”
The findings speak to “the importance of the Department of Defense conducting robust due diligence checks of who actually owns and controls the company” said Jodi Vittori, a former U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who is now a professor at Georgetown University and expert on illicit finance.
Credit: Zuzanna Michalak/OCCRP
Contract’s Liaison Tied to Fuel Scandal
The intermediary selected by Rhomax to manage the relationship with Tavrons and the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency also has ties to the Rahmes and the fuel scandal in Lebanon.
Contracting documents show Rhomax appointed Georges El Saneh, a former manager in Lebanon’s Department of Energy, to oversee Rhomax’s relationships with third parties.
Two years before the Rhomax deal, Saneh was named and charged in the same Lebanese indictment related to the fuel scandal that implicated the Rahmes’ business, and would later underpin the sanctions against the brothers.
The indictment also named and charged ZR Energy DMCC, Zaouk, and one of the Rahme brothers, Teddy, for their alleged roles in the scandal. (Zaouk’s lawyer said his client was “not aware of any improprieties with this appointment or the services Mr. Saneh provided.” Rhomax’s former director Meyers did not comment on Saneh’s appointment, and Saneh did not respond to a request for comment.)
The indictment alleged that the fuel supplied by ZR Energy DMCC contained chemical waste that could pose a threat to public health and could lead to the explosion of the plants. (Zaouk’s lawyer disputed the finding, arguing that “the problem was that the fuel contained sediments which affected its useability” rather than chemical waste.)
The case has stalled in Lebanon. A lawyer for the Rahmes said the charges against Teddy had been dropped.
But former Treasury Undersecretary Nelson appeared to raise questions over the judicial process back in 2023 when he explained the reasons for the U.S. sanctions.
“Lebanese prosecutors never followed through” with the charges, Nelson said, asking the Lebanese authorities why they had “not held Raymond and Teddy Rahme along with ZR Energy DMCC accountable?”
Lebanese prosecutorial authorities did not respond to a request for comment.
Zaouk’s lawyer said he is still waiting for his day in court.
“Mr. Zaouk vigorously disputes the allegations set forth in the criminal indictment,” his lawyers said. “We fully expect that if and when the criminal action is allowed to proceed, Mr. Zaouk will again be exonerated”