ABAKAN AIR HIRES LAWYERS AND HACKERS TO FIGHT BLACKLIST.AERO

Our public and paralegal actions have pinched the tail of the Russian airline ABAKAN AIR very hard. Judging by the efforts that this company began to make to counter the BLACKLIST.AERO, they began to "burn" there. Military contracts carried out by Abakan Air, which is under US sanctions, may be disrupted. Abakan management is furious.

After the plane stood there for 11 days thanks to our letter to the Entebbe airport administration the Abakan management was seriously alarmed. But after the plane began to have problems in Dubai immediately after the described incident, a panic attack had already begun. Even despite the fact that the UAE government does not formally support American and European sanctions, no one wants to bring this issue to the public plane.

But most of all, Abakan was hit not by our contacts with the management of the OMDW airport and the management of DNATA (which has a division in the United States), but by my public appeal to all participants in the aviation market not to cooperate with a company under OFAC sanctions, which also has a large debt registered in the BLACKLIST.AERO.  that the RA-76370 is testing, it was included in a special Tracking List and the next time the UAE is visited, the board can be checked for technical compliance with safety requirements. Therefore, it is not surprising that the acts of intimidation with all possible legal harassment through a hired Dubai law firm called Afaf Marjan Advocates & Legal Consultants began. 

It is surprising that in its appeal to us, Afaf Marjan Advocates & Legal Consultants does not hesitate to call Abakan Air, which is under sanctions, its client. Cooperation with a company that is under OFAC sanctions threatens any of its counterparties with secondary sanctions from the United States. Yes, of course, no one will close your company in Dubai at the request of the United States. But the United States itself can freeze the dollar correspondent account of such a company,  as well as search for assets owned by such a company and its beneficiaries in the United States. And also in those jurisdictions where the hand of OFAC and FinCEN can reach.

Therefore, we asked to send an official confirmation that the Russian company Abakan Air has given Dubai lawyers official powers to represent their interests before BLACKLIST.AERO. In response, we received such an official confirmation directly from the Abakan Air email. Well, what can I say: we could not even expect such a gift!

Yes, the letter makes a lot of reservations. However, the fact of cooperation is obvious. And as for "confidentiality" - why don't you go to hell.

It is possible that both the lawyers of Afaf Marjan Advocates & Legal Consultants and the management of Abakan Air are skeptical about the desire of OFAC to take any action against the Dubai company. After all, everyone expects that very soon the Russian-Ukrainian war will be stopped and sanctions against Russian companies will begin to be gradually lifted. And they are just going to start lifting sanctions from the aviation sector.

But there is one small nuance here: the sanctions imposed by the American administration on Abakan Air are not directly related to the war in Ukraine. The Russian cargo operator was punished for transporting military cargo in the interests of the private military company Wagner.  And the Wagner Group itself, in turn, is recognized by the American authorities as a Transnational Criminal Organization. In several other countries, Wagner is also recognized as a Terrorist Organization. Therefore, the carelessness with which the lawyers of Afaf Marjan Advocates & Legal Consultants approached this issue raises reasonable doubts about their qualifications. We will see which of us is right when we receive (or do not receive) some reaction from OFAC and FinCEN to our appeal and the facts provided.

But attempts to intimidate the management of Abakan Air are clearly not enough. They are frightened by our awareness of the technical condition of their aircraft. They want to understand who leaks information to us about all the violations with which the same RA-76370 flies, and not only this aircraft. Therefore, they clearly hired hackers in order to try to gain access to our e-mail. Literally the next day after the Abakan Air office sent us a letter about the credentials of the Dubai lawyers, another letter arrived at the address of our team, visually very similar not to the previous one. If we had not already faced other repeated similar attempts earlier,  then perhaps curiosity would get the better of us and we would fall into a trap.

The fake letter from the Abakan office was allegedly addressed to one of the operator's counterparties and contained a file. The description indicated that this was an invoice for the services rendered. The hackers' calculations, as always in such cases, were that we would be interested in who Abakan Air works with and what kind of services the invoice was issued for.  The file contained a phishing link that was supposed to launch a worm into our system and give the criminals access to our files.

Given that at present almost all 100% of flights operated by Abakan Air are operated in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Private Military Company Wagner, we have little doubt that it was not some third-party hackers - extortionists who tried to penetrate our system, but specialists who are currently hacking into the systems of European states providing support to Ukraine. And as a rule, these hackers wear shoulder straps and their registered place of residence is the Russian military unit 26165, also known as the 85th Special Service Center. This military unit is stationed in Moscow at 20 Korozhina Street.

Well, we ourselves are not hackers and do not work for the military. But ordinary attentiveness, as well as the BLACKLIST.AERO basic OSINT training of one of the best OSINT agencies in Ukraine (I will talk about this in more detail later) made it possible to notice inconsistencies in time and attract IT specialists before the file was opened, and not after. Two days later, without waiting for the reaction they needed, the hackers once again sent us the same email with a phishing link in an attached file, allegedly from the Abakan Air office.

Well, all the above facts indicate that we have pinched the balls of the management of Abakan Air very hard and create real problems for them in their criminal activities. Currently, Abakan Air's planning department resembles a special operations information unit. Before each real flight, Abakan dispatchers file a fake flight plan in the system, where they indicate the fake airport of arrival. After takeoff, the Abakan plane turns off the transponder and makes up to 2/3 of the way with the transponder turned off, which is a gross violation of aviation safety. Fortunately, African countries interested in Russian weapons turn a blind eye to this.

Therefore, in the near future, the war between BLACKLIST.AERO and ABAKAN AIR, which has recently been operating as a unit of the Russian Ministry of Defense, will break out, as they say, not for life but to the death. In this regard, the administration of the BLACKLIST.AERO Register calls not only on those who support or sympathize with BLACKLIST.AERO, but also on everyone who is against Russia's aggression against Ukraine and has information about Abakan Air flights,  as well as the nature of the goods they carry, shares such information with us immediately.

Thank you in advance for your support!

Artem Degtiarov, Chief editor at BLACKLIST.AERO