Identifying Cause of Catastrophic Oil Spill in the Mediterranean

A catastrophic oil spill contaminated beaches along a 99-mile stretch of the Mediterranean coast of Israel. The Israeli Environmental Protection Ministry suspected that the spill was caused by oil that had been illegally dumped from the “Emerald”, a tanker that was thought to be smuggling oil at the time of the disaster.

Working pro bono in collaboration with the Ministry, Black Cube set out to identify the Emerald’s owners, to support the Ministry’s efforts to confirm how the disaster had occurred and identify the responsible parties. Black Cube traced the tanker’s ownership through complex structures and shell companies in off-shore jurisdictions and gained recordings confirming the Emerald’s ultimate beneficial owner, which turned out to be the Malah family, a Syrian family smuggling oil from Iran. The findings of the investigation were presented to the Ministry and offered a way to take action against those responsible for the ecological catastrophe.