When Sanctions Suit Him: FT’s Tom Wilson Applauds The Sanctioning Of One Trader, Shields Another

Imagine my surprise seeing Financial Times journalist Tom Wilson take a principled stand supporting UK sanctions on Etibar Eyyub for illicit Russian oil trading — while for months he’s painted Niels Troost, sanctioned for the same offenses by the UK, EU, Switzerland and Monaco as a victim, and characterised my reporting of him to authorities as a “disinformation campaign.”

Tom Wilson has had a story about a business conflict between Niels Troost and myself pinned to the top of his X feed for the last 5 months. He has written three articles (mirroring over 300 pay-to-play articles saturating the internet) and follow ups on this conflict, which he has repeatedly portrayed through a lens that distorts facts, rewards criminal behavior, and punishes those who act in accordance with the law.

Early on, Wilson frames his piece as “Niels Troost has a staggering story to tell about how he got sanctioned.” Notice the sleight of hand: Wilson does not claim to report verified facts; he is simply relaying Troost’s "story.” It’s a story about a story - a rhetorical trick designed to lower journalistic standards, granting himself permission to rely almost exclusively on Troost’s own words and evidence. It’s a way to shield a one-sided account from scrutiny, to give an uncorroborated narrative the appearance of credibility.

What is most troubling is not merely the framing of the story but that despite the exhaustive narrative he spins, Wilson utterly fails to address the issue that lies at the very core of this story: Why would a thirty-year veteran of the Russian oil trade — a man who’s built his career navigating some of the world’s most heavily sanctioned and tightly regulated markets, from Russian crude to the "Oil for Food" program in Iraq — have believed he could continue trading sanctioned Russian oil under an "OFAC license" supposedly obtained through a secret CIA program, without ever once setting eyes on such a license, without ever stepping foot in a CIA, OFAC, or U.S. Treasury office, and without meeting a single official from any of these authorities?

This is the suspension of disbelief that Wilson demands from his readers. Troost's claim — that he simply took the word of a newly introduced business partner (myself), without documentation, verification, or even the most basic due diligence — is laughable. Yet Wilson does not meaningfully interrogate this glaring implausibility. Instead, he chooses to amplify Troost's victim narrative, turning a veteran trader's inexplicable dereliction of judgment into a footnote and casting aspersions elsewhere.

In his second installment, Wilson goes a step further: He frames my reporting of Troost's apparent sanctions violations— discovered through a formal audit of the companies in which I had invested — as part of a "disinformation campaign" to get him sanctioned. Think about the implications of that for one second.

Is this journalism? Or is it bullying?

I did my duty as an officer of the company. I did not leak it to the press. I did not wage a public smear campaign. I followed the law. Yet “Fake Spy” is a sexier story than “30 year veteran of Russian oil trading violates sanctions by continuing to trade Russian oil.”

At no point has Tom Wilson, or the Financial Times, demonstrated that the facts I reported were fabricated or exaggerated. In fact, Tom Wilson himself had previously reported on Troost’s sanctions violations, and by his own admission his reporting was central to Troost’s sanctioning by the EU.

Instead, Tom Wilson and the FT have participated in an attempt to kill the messenger and in so doing supress and discourage responsible behavior and support Niels Troost’s attempt to evade sanctions and justice. I have recently told my story on the podcast Targeted – and my treatment by Wilson and the FT is not too far removed from that of another guest on the podcast, whistleblower Jonathan Taylor, whose corrupt former employer has subjected him to a punitive, vindictive campaign of political, financial and personal persecution.

Mr. Wilson would have served his readers better by asking harder questions of Mr. Troost rather than participating in the malicious attack on me. How could a man of Troost’s experience and expertise violate sanctions so carelessly? Why is Wilson’s principled position on Eyyub so diametrically opposed to his position on Troost? And why, after being the first journalist to expose Troost’s violations did Tom Wilson’s reporting shift 180-degrees after spending several days with Troost in September-December 2024? These are the questions that remain unanswered.