Leaked Files Raise Questions Over Millions Flowing to Belarusian Tycoon

After Belarus’ old-guard oligarchs were hit by European sanctions, businessman Aliaksei Aleksin’s fortunes began to rise.

Untouched by the 2012 sanctions package, which was designed to punish the autocratic rule of long-time president Alexander Lukashenko, Aleksin became increasingly influential. Starting in 2018, Lukashenko issued a series of decrees that granted Aleksin almost total control of the tobacco industry. He was also involved in multiple other industries in Belarus, from energy to food.

Aleksin was sanctioned by the U.S. and the EU in 2021 as they tried to hinder what the U.S. described as Lukashenko’s “corrupt and brutal regime” by targeting key businessmen — labeled by the U.S. as “wallets” — who they said helped prop up the president’s rule and benefited from it.

Aliaksei Aleksin.

Now, reporters have obtained newly leaked documents from inside a New Zealand financial services provider called Worldclear, the Vanuatu-based Pacific Private Bank (PPB), and Aleksin’s companies that offer a rare behind-the-curtain look at financial transactions connected to his business empire in Belarus years before he or his companies were placed under international sanctions.

The files reveal a pipeline of cash flows between Aleksin’s energy firms, two Cypriot companies, and his personal bank account, with the funds routed via PPB and Worldclear.

Multiple finance experts, including a former banking professional turned fraud investigator, and an attorney who is a certified anti-money laundering expert, said the details of the arrangements – which feature an interest-free loan with no clear commercial rationale, repeated cancelations of oil contracts, and transactions blocked by banks – raise compliance questions about the true nature of the transactions.

The findings come as part of an investigation into financial services provider Worldclear by OCCRP and partners , which showed how Worldclear processed millions in transfers for a global clientele – and how inspectors from New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs found it was only partially compliant with anti-money laundering requirements. The investigation was based on cache of documents from inside Worldclear, obtained by Interest.co.nz and shared with OCCRP, 15min.lt, the Belarusian Investigative Center, and Expressen.

On its now defunct website, Worldclear offered “transactional banking services to international corporate and institutional customers,” but it was not itself a bank; instead, Worldclear held its clients’ money in accounts in its own name at mainstream banks before sending the funds on to their destination.

PPB’s current managing director Eimantas Kazlauskas said the bank could not comment on specific clients or transactions due to banking secrecy requirements, but noted that PPB’s relationship with Worldclear was terminated in 2018. He said the bank’s current owners and managers assumed control of PPB after the transactions mentioned in this article.

Worldclear founder David Hillary told OCCRP neither he nor Worldclear had ever “knowingly or recklessly facilitated criminal offending, acted for the purpose of assisting any person to commit an offence, or designed or operated services for the purpose of concealing the source, destination, or beneficial connection of illicit funds.”

Aleksin did not respond to a request for comment.

Lawyers for Kavaliauskas, PPB’s owner at the time of several of the transactions, said he “vehemently denies any allegation” that he assisted in any financial crimes, noting that their client “has never been so much as questioned by any relevant authorities.”

PPB at Center of Apparent Crypto Scheme

Last year OCCRP and 15min revealed how PPB's current owners bought a portfolio of luxury real estate using loans from PPB backed by the proceeds of a cryptocoin fundraiser. (Lawyers for a company belonging to the bank’s current owners denied that the crypto fundraiser was fraudulent but declined to comment on specific transactions.)

In November 2025 Vanuatu’s central bank revoked PPB’s i nternational license . It had warned PPB two months earlier that it had violated the conditions of the license. The decision was staye d in December 2025 pending an appeal, and PPB’s managing director Kazlauskas told OCCRP in April that the bank’s license is “not suspended and [PPB] is operating as per usual.” Reporters did not receive a reply to a request for confirmation sent to the governor of Vanuatu’s central bank.

Pacific Private Bank in Vanuatu, in the South Pacific Ocean.

The Energy Company And The Loans

The troves of leaked documents from Worldclear, PPB, and Aleksin’s firms cover the years 2014 to 2020, before Aleksin was sanctioned and when his star was rising in Lukashenko’s circle.

They reveal how in 2017 and 2018, PPB used Worldclear to process around $1.8 million in transfers labeled as loan repayments from a Cypriot firm called Wallitus to Aleksin’s personal account at MTBank, a Belarusian bank he had acquired…