Poland lost hundreds of millions trying to buy Venezuelan oil with crypto to circumvent American sanctions. The head of a division of Polish Orlen met a 25-year-old founder of a Dubai firm, and five days later the state-owned company transferred a $230 million advance to this person. The scheme involved settlement in USDT because ordinary bank payments to Venezuela do not go through. Then comes something that is hard to believe: access to the wallets was handed over to intermediaries on flash drives (!!!) during personal meetings in Caracas. One of them was given the keys to 110 million USDT and disappeared. Another $50 million vanished during conversion through another Dubai firm; a court case is now underway there. The intermediaries from PDVSA never received the rights to specific oil cargoes. Three tankers arrived for 6 million barrels, stood idle at the berth for months and left empty. The demurrage of one of them alone cost $72 million. The result: a small shipment of petroleum products instead of six million barrels and at least $424 million in losses.