Investigator says extortionist played Unaoil and Fairfax

An extortionist who demanded $US5m from an oil company was playing a double-game as both media source and criminal.

Unaoil chief operating officer Saman Ahsani says ‘we had to take proper advice on how to handle the negotiations’.

An extortionist who demanded $US5 million from an oil company — exposed as allegedly corrupt in a major Fairfax Media investi­gation — was playing a double-game as both source and criminal, in the opinion of a former prosecutor close to the case.

Andrew O’Connell, a former US prosecutor and Secret Service agent who runs sensitive private investigations for Guidepost Solutions, told The Australian of his findings after being hired by Una­oil to manage the extortion bid.

The Weekend Australian ­revealed that, while Fairfax was mounting a secret ­investigation into Unaoil, an extortionist was demanding $US5m in untraceable crypto currency bitcoin from the company’s owners, the Monaco-based Ahsani family.

The extortionist, whose first emailed demand to the Ahsani family was dated December 10, ­repeatedly threatened to give to the media the company’s stolen and allegedly incriminating ­archives of tens of thousands of emails unless the money was paid.

Fairfax Media, which stands by its reports, the first of which was published on March 30, is adamant its sources were never ­involved in any extortion bid, and there is no suggestion that Fairfax was aware of the extortion.

Mr O’Connell, who managed investigative teams of IT experts in Dubai and Monaco to see if Una­oil’s data had been stolen by a hacker or from a storage space, said of the extortionist: “When I saw the story it was my professional opinion that the same guys were working with the journalist all along. It is clear and convincing to me that they were playing both sides. “I do believe they were the same people. They wanted the money, but with these guys there was another agenda — they were nasty and hostile, and that is unusual. They were getting very personal, talking about the family.”

E-MAIL: December 10, 2015

E-MAIL: December 12, 2015

E-MAIL: December 24, 2015

E-MAIL: February 2, 2016

E-MAIL: February 26, 2016

Mr O’Connell said he advised the Ahsani family there were too many coincidences, including the same data from the same time-frame being in the hands of the journalists and the extortionist who was threatening to release it to the media.

“We tried everything we could to find out what we could, but they really did cover their tracks and I am not sure that even government agencies could have figured it out,’’ he said from New York. “I think it was doomed, anyway, because these guys were always going to give it to the media, they just wanted their $US5m too.”

Fairfax Media journalists in Australia and media partner Huffington Post relied on the archive of stolen emails for their reports about alleged bribes paid to government officials and others in the oil sector. The reports, which ­described Unaoil as “the bribe ­factory”, resulted from the decision by a source in Europe to contact The Age’s Walkley Award-winning investigative reporter Nick McKenzie last July.

Four weeks before the March 30 publication, the blackmailer, who expressed anger at having been paid only $US130,000 in bitcoin, told the Ahsani family in an email: “I dec­ide release to media.” On March 25, the extortionist wrote: “Is time now for you feel some pain.”

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, the FBI and the Australian Federal Police have confirmed investigations arising from the leaked emails. The Ahsani family, which denies wrongdoing, but potentially faces serious charges, did not disclose the extortion but secretly asked Mr O’Connell to advise and craft responses from December until the Fairfax Media reports ­appeared in March.

“This is the first time that we have ever dealt with anything like this,’’ said Unaoil chief operating officer Saman Ahsani. “So we had to take proper advice on how to handle the negotiations.”

Mr O’Connell said he thought the extortionists “had an agenda”. “They wanted to release it to the media and get their pound of flesh and the money as well. “These guys were emotional about it and there was hostility. There was name-calling.”