NEXUS – PLEXUS, WHERE ARE YOU?!

Artem Degtiarov, Chief editor at BLACKLIST.AERO

The history of NEXUS FLIGHT OPERATION SERVICES from Saudi Arabia and its founder ABDULLAH AL-SAYED is one of the most striking examples of systemic fraud in the business aviation market in recent years. 

For most market participants, the name of this company still causes involuntary shivers. However, what happened to the instigator of this catastrophe in the world of business aviation?! Small spoiler: Abdullah Al-Sayed is safe and sound. He continues his machinations and does not care a whit about anyone who tries to call him to account.

It all started very pompously and bravura. The company served the largest clients in Saudi Arabia, including the Royal Saudi Air Force. According to knowledgeable people, it was the acquaintance with the future crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al-Saud and his subsequent elevation in the royal hierarchy that made Abdullah Al-Sayed believe that absolutely everything was allowed to him in this life. 

NEXUS FLIGHT OPERATIONS SERVICES was a desirable client for the majority of aviation market participants precisely because of the high status of those whose flights this company organized. No one had any doubts about the financial solvency of this company when representatives of the service companies saw the lists of passengers ...

It was the association of the company with members of the Royal family of Saudi Arabia that played a cruel joke on all those who provided millions-strong loans to the Nexus, naively believing that this company “will never expose the reputation of the royal family to any threat of non-payment”.

Using this card - blanche, Abdullah Al-Sayed began nothing else but to clone his companies. In addition to Saudi Arabia itself, he saw (and judging by his current actions - continues to see) India and the USA as key markets for him. In addition, he had serious views on the African continent.

Creating a whole network of companies required a lot of money. As a rule, in this case, businessmen either look for partners who can invest their capital, or take a loan from a bank. But our hero went his own way: he began to “take loans” from his clients. The secret of this business was that the clients themselves didn't know anything about it!

Another source of financing for clone companies was the very same high-limit loans that service companies provided to Nexus Flight Operation. Instead of paying off the money received from clients for the delivered jet fuel, ground support services and other services, Abdullah Al-Sayed spent them on his other projects, numerous trips around the world, paying for PR services, and so on. But what about creditors?

They will wait...

By that time when the main clients of Nexus Flight Operation Services sensed something was wrong, conducted financial audits, and then began to urgently break off relations with the company, Abdullah Al-Sayed had already acquired a large number of companies that actually duplicated Nexus functions.

Nexus Flight Operations Services (Saudi Arabia), Nexus Flight Operations (India), Plexus Flight Operations (India), Plexus Aviation Services (India), Plexus Academy (India), Buraq Aviations (Saudi Arabia), Baroque Aviation (USA) - this is not a complete list of companies that are associated with Abdullah Al-Sayed in the aviation market.

As you can see, the creator of these clones is bad with creativity: NEXUS - PLEXUS, BURAQ - BAROQUE. Seems to be he is laughing at the public. Even the logo of the Nexus group of companies and the Plexus group of companies is almost identical: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nexus-flight-operations/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/plexus-aviation-india/?originalSubdomain=in

Another indicator of the closeness of the companies is the fact that former NEXUS employees now work in different companies of the PLEXUS group. Abdullah Al-Sayed holds on tight to the key personnel of former NEXUS. First, he needs people who know all his schemes, who can help clone them from time to time. Secondly, he is well aware that if he does not keep them near him, they may start talking. And they will tell so much that in the same Saudi Arabia, according to the law, his head can be simply cut off. It might be done even for minor crimes there.

Well, we return to the moment of the so-called “collapse” (only for the creditors of the company, but not for the organizer of the scheme). At the time when Nexus Flight Operations (Saudi Arabia) was left by its main client, Saudi Royal Air Force, and Abdullah Al-Sayed decided to file for bankruptcy, his company had accumulated debts to 501 (!) creditor companies. This is easy to check with the Saudi Bankruptcy Registry: https://bankruptcy.gov.sa/en/Announcements/Pages/announcementDetails.aspx?AdID=2815#

And what, do you think this was some kind of tragedy for Abdullah al-Sayed? Not at all! The “bankruptcy” was well planned. It was the so-called “controlled bankruptcy”. The clients remained with the company were asked to send payments for the services provided by Nexus Flight Operation to another company - BURAQ AVIATIONS (that’s what it is called, contrary to the grammar of the English language).

As a result of such a controlled bankruptcy, the company’s creditors lost the opportunity to receive at least some more or less significant part of the funds. Only recently, 20 from 501 creditor companies to which Nexus’s debts were not so significant received notice from the liquidator that their funds would be paid.

Well, our hero continued to do what he had already started with BURAQ AVIATIONS. You will be surprised, but here, too, his gift of the gab played its part! Market participants continued to work with Buraq Aviations. On credit! That allowed this company also to accumulate quite large debts (albeit not as huge as NEXUS) that Abdullah Al-Sayed does not intend to repay.

Well, the companies Nexus Flight Operations (SA) and Buraq Aviations (SA) have become a sort of “cut-off cars” of the train that created our personage.

At this point, Abdullah Al-Sayed decided not “to cut off” Plexus Aviation. It also started accumulating debts. But after the threats of creditors to file the case in the BLACKLIST.AERO Registry, these debts began to be paid. Nevertheless, we are absolutely sure that sooner or later its turn will come.

As for Abdullah Al-Sayed he feels great, positioning himself as an international investor https://twitter.com/13alsayed https://leaugure.com/ 

You may ask where does the money come from? In fact, the real “investors” of Abdullah Al-Sayed’s projects are you, dear creditors of Nexus Flight Operations and Buraq Aviations!

I often hear questions like: “How is this possible? Why does the Saudi Arabian authorities allow such a scammer to exist?! Could an acquaintance with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman be an indulgence for such a scam?!”

I don’t have a definite answer to these questions yet. Yet. Now I can only publicly forward these indignant questions to those who could ask it directly to the addressee. And I will wait for answers. After that, we will return to this topic again. We will definitely return.

In the meantime, the administration of the BLACKLIST.AERO registry calls on all participants in the aviation market NOT TO COOPERATE with any companies related to Abdullah Al-Sayed.