According to CoinMeta, and as reported by the Financial Times, Swiss trading company OTS, which is part of Poland's state-owned energy group Orlen, attempted to purchase Venezuelan oil using cryptocurrencies at the end of 2023. They prepaid approximately $230 million to a company in Dubai Hannon International with the plan to acquire 6 million barrels of crude oil. However, traders used encrypted USB drives to transfer funds to Venezuelan brokers, but the vast majority of the oil was never delivered. OTS only received a portion of the fuel oil and had to bear high costs due to vessel demurrage. This incident led to an investigation by the Polish prosecution, and several former senior executives of Orlen face criminal charges. The total losses resulting from these transactions are estimated to be around $424 million.