9. Interference of the WSI on the Fuel and Energy Market

In the scope of their business activities, the WSI carried out operational and investigation activities in the area of fuel management in the units of all types of armed forces.
Till the end of 1990, the provisions of fuel to the military units were carried out centrally. Since 1991, in order to adjust the logistics management to new market conditions, works were started on the "Concept of Restructuring of the Institutions in the Main Logistics Department of the Polish Armed Forces", which assumed, among others, the complete switch to direct purchases from private producers of fuels and lubricants (F&L), as well as, from the representatives of Western companies (omitting the intermediation of foreign trade companies, e.g. CIECH) in order to reduce the expenses on purchase of F&L, by eliminating the trade intermediation, including CPN [Polish down-stream oil company]. This argument requires the contrast of the situation on the USSR fuel market, which was the main source of fuels during communist times and so it remained until now. The changes made by the General Staff did not lead to the independence of the Polish Armed Forces from the Russian suppliers, but created a new structure of intermediation and profit-sharing in the fuel trade. Until 1990, the profits went to the state enterprise CIECH; after the change, the benefits began to flow to those businessmen who had contacts with the commanders of military districts and garrisons, where the fuel bases, used as the mixing plants, were located. The greatest profits, however, were made by the Russian go-betweens (e.g. the company J&S) and those senior military people who supervised that trade (e.g. Romuald Waga, long time chief of the Navy’s logistics and later a shareholder in one of the fuel companies, brother of Jan Waga who was the president of the Kulczyk Holding and later the Chairman of the Supervisory Board in “Orlen”).
An example of such activities was the monitoring of the situation related to the contracts made in 1992-2001 by the Military Port Authority in Gdynia with civil entities operating in trans-shipment and lease of fuel infrastructure (PHU "Arion", PUM "Ship Service", "SOG Energy Polska Ltd", "Oktan Energy V/L Service S.C.", "BMG Petrotrade Poland").
Those contracts concerned the manner and terms of trans-shipment of fuels from the oil tankers, which delivered to the companies leasing the fuel warehouses. As can be seen from the counter-intelligence reports: Trans-shipments were made using the Navy’s pipeline, which belonged to the 35 Fuel and Lubricant Storehouse in the place called Dębogórze. Furthermore, the fuels were mixed with other products in that storehouse in order to improve their chemical properties. The tankers delivered furnace oil, while airplane fuel was added to the leased tanks, which after mixing with furnace oil, achieved the parameters close to those of the diesel oil. It was probably the representatives of ‘Rafineria [Oil Rafinery] Czechowice’ who gave that product the “class” (in accordance with applicable standards), approved the lab tests and gave consent for the distribution. The fuel was then transferred to railway tank cars and distributed to the contractors (distributors) of the refinery. During one of the last trans-shipments carried out on the grounds protected by military units, a coloring agent was probably added to the furnace oil, to make it more difficult to distinguish between furnace oil and diesel oil by sight. This raw material was distributed all over Poland.”
Thus, the WSI were fully aware of the participation of the officers of Polish Armed Forces in those practices and the fact that the military infrastructure was used for that purpose. It could not have been different considering that one of the main figures in those activities was Admiral Romuald Waga. These facts were, however, concealed from the state authorities, including the Sejm’s Committee for Orlen Affair, which was not provided, inter alia, with the materials proving that Col. Kruczkowski had been investigated since 1991 under the suspicion of contacts with criminal circles. The documents of that investigation are missing. The only trace of those actions is the operational report addressed to the WSI Chief B. Izydorczyk dated August 1992.
In his letter dated March 18, 2005, the WSI Chief Gen. Marek Dukaczewski assured the Prime Minister Marek Belka that the WSI did not use any assistance of people employed in the fuel industry. That statement was clearly untrue because – if nothing else – the Vice-president of Orlen from October 2992 to 2005 was Andrzej Macenowicz, a WSI collaborator aka “PARYS” [cryptic name for secret collaborator]. Dukaczewski was perfectly aware of that and “PARYS” himself referred to the acquaintance with the WSI Chief in his conversations with the case officer.
In the course of cooperation, "PARYS" declared full loyalty and willingness to collaborate with military intelligence, stressing that he had full access to “all information discussed at the meeting of Management Board and Supervisory Board”. He also made an extensive account of the ongoing negotiations regarding the prepared contract with Russia: "Soon the decision will be made regarding the diversification of Orlen’s supply sources; instead of one go-between – the company DGC - there will be several, probably five suppliers. This is compliant with the guidelines of the Government of the Republic of Poland as well as with Russia’s expectations, where Russia pointed out the possible candidates, including 'Lukoil' and 'Yukos'. Decisions in this matter will be made in the next few days, so if we want to have any impact on how the situation develops, it would be necessary to take appropriate actions as soon as possible. This is even more important considering that it is planned to sign contracts for the next five years. The collaborator asked what were our preferences in that respect…”, noted Waldemar Żak of former ‘Unit Y’ in regards to Macenowicz’s statement.
Obviously, "PARYS" not only provided information, but was also ready to take actions specified by the WSI with respect to Orlen, regardless of his duties to the shareholders and the Government of the Republic of Poland that he represented in the Management Board. "PARYS" also declared that he was ready to "put someone in the company’s structures, if needed". He criticized other collaborators of the military intelligence and informed that UOP had a great number of "their people" in place: “there are WSI people in Orlen, who forgot what should motivate them” (among them, he named a certain man by the name Praksmajer). During the meeting, Parys revealed his acquaintance with Gen. Dukaczewski. In the summary of the meeting, Col. Żak stressed the value of "PARYS". "It can soon be expected that the Russians’ interest in Orlen will increase tremendously, and after a failed attempt to take over Refinery Gdansk they will strive to enter the Polish fuel market by participation in PKN Orlen”.
The "Parys" case was also handled by Col. Roman Karaś (‘Unit Y’) and Col. Krzysztof Łada (also ‘Unit Y’). The latter, when he already was the Chief of Operations in the 3rd Directorate, decided that "in the further contacts, the following should be done:
- determine the current intelligence capabilities of Parys and use them efficiently,
- stimulate the collaborator,
- establish the cooperation base and successively investigate the collaborator”.
On December 2, 2003, during a meeting known from the work file, held by Maj. Krzysztof Rengel from the 2nd Directorate and approved by Krzysztof Surdyk, Chief of the 2nd Directorate, the focus was on the profile of Krzysztof Kluzek, another vice-president of Orlen. This was probably related to the meeting that Kluzek had earlier with Gen. Dukaczewski, during which he offered to collaborate. Rengel stressed that both the Kluzek case and the assessment of the ABW’s role in Orlen are the matters of great importance to the intelligence. "PARYS" gave a very thorough and positive profile of Krzysztof Kluzek, describing him as an honest man who diligently fought all malfeasances in Orlen. He also referred to the positive opinion that Gen. Petelicki held about Kluzek, and indicated also that Kluzek refused an offered bribe in the amount of 1,2 million zlotys. Macenowicz also revealed that between Orlen and ABW “there is an agreement under which 23 designated people were employed in the company. (...) They occupy positions which allow access to the information needed by their parent institution”.. The memo from the meeting was read by Col. Marek Szlenk and Col. Roman Karaś from the 2nd Directorate, and the latter wrote: "Suggested monitoring of the situation in the discussed case – the Chief’s decision dated December 10, 2003.” (Among the officers of the 2nd Directorate of General Staff was the president of the ‘Ciech’ [chemical] Company, Zdzisław Monkiewicz, who advocated for the participation of subsidiaries in the oil trade with Russia. Dukaczewski must have known about his ties with military services).

The WSI and the Russian Expansion
At least since October 2003, the WSI counter-intelligence was perfectly aware of the Russia’s endeavors to take control over the Polish energy sector. Such information was received from the Cracow-based unit of the WSI in the course of operational and investigation actions. It was determined then that the company X from Poznań, owned by an Ukraine citizen A.W., in May 2002 made an economic analysis of Rafineria Gdansk before privatization for the Russian company ‘Q’ from Moscow, owned by the former KGB unit's Chief, Gen. F. J. Bondarenko, nicknamed “Little Kremlin", which took into account various aspects of its take-over by fuel consortia from former USSR countries.
The acquired documents presented the Russians’ plans to cause the bankruptcy of the Polish energy sector in order to take it over. The analysis contained long-term and strategic plans of operation in the territory of Poland after it joined the UE. In projects of the hostile take-over of the energy sector, A.W. referred to "’action’ opportunities, i.e. direct access to the Minister of Economy, Mr. Jacek Piechota, Minister of State Treasury, Mr. W. Kaczmarek, Minister of Infrastructure and Deputy Prime Minister, Marek Pol, and, naturally, the Prime Minister himself (in accordance with the preliminary agreement with Mr. A. Zukowy, Paris, the Merril Lynch and Glave International Inc. group, talks have been conducted with the aforementioned officials regarding the postponement of the decision to who to sell the controlling block of shares of the Refinery: W. Alikpier or A. Chodorkowski; we wait for your [F. J. Bondarenko – Verification Commission’s note] instructions)”.
The full documentation of that case was sent to the Chief of Staff of the Army, Col. Jerzy Skwarc, and next to the Chief of the 3rd Directorate WSI, K. Kłosiński. It took over a year before the information, acquired and sent in October 2003, was noticed in Warsaw, in December 2004. Col. Kłosiński did not present a written report to the WSI Chief, Gen. Dukaczewski, he only made it orally and together they were to decide about notifying the whole matter to the Special Service Committee and the Prime Minister. We do not know why the Committee was informed not in the framework of the report of the WSI Chief, but two weeks later by a separate letter, which no one in the Committee read anyway. The WSI have also failed to provide that information to the Sejm’s Committee for the Orlen Affair, and the letter to the Prime Minister did not have the main informative enclosures. Efforts have been made to precisely block any further flow of information. The Chief of General Staff of the Army, at the initiative of Col.. Kłosiński, ordered the unit in Cracow to drop the operational case in the scope of which the information about intentions to make the Polish energy sector go bankrupt were acquired. This was because the WSI chiefs decided that the informer was inspired by the Russian services. The order was also to stop the collaboration, cease any contacts and start investigation of the former collaborator as a figurehead.
Gen. Dukaczewski, in turn, decided in January 2005 that the possessed information relative to the threat to the State’s economic interest was not in his competence and informed Prime Minister Belka that “all materials” have been conveyed to the ABW. From the existing documentation we only know for certain that those materials were conveyed to the ABW’s branch office in Cracow. Simultaneously, the same materials were sent to the attention of the Chairman of Special Service Committee, Andrzej Grzesik, MP. The analyses made by A. W. for the former KGB Chief have, however, never been presented to the Investigation Committee for PKN Orlen Affair; it has never received them in spite of numerous demands for full information. It remains to be explained how the classification of that information was organized. We know that Col. Kłosiński, when preparing the thesis for Gen. Dukaczewski for his statement during the briefing in MOD, included the information about the Russian materials. He wrote that those files were sent to Gruszka, MP from the Orlen Committee, however, the MP never received those materials. It is shocking that being in possession of information so critical to the security of the Polish State, the WSI did not make any attempt to verify that information, acquire additional sources and control the existing ones, confront those news with other information.. To the contrary, all efforts were directed at blocking that information and protecting Russian interest. The WSI did not check or verify the acquired information, which posed a danger to the State security, while the person who provided important information was treated as an enemy.
Russian activities did not end on developing and implementing the plan to take over ‘Rafineria Gdansk’. In 2006, Russia started collecting information about the Polish brown and bituminous coal mining, in order to implement the plan of taking over 12 strategic mines.
In turn, the important information about the German plans to eliminate Poland from the world brown and bituminous coal market is contained in the work files of a collaborator of ‘Unit 22’, aka "W" [cryptic name for secret collaborator], (run by Maj. Grzegorz Sobecki). That information shows that concealing important information from the state authorities was a widely accepted practice in the WSI. In 2002, the above-mentioned collaborator, employed by one of the Polish banks, delivered to his case officer a document concerning the forecast of the absorption capacities of the bituminous coal market till 2010. That report presented on several hundred pages the experts’ forecasts of demand for bituminous coal, based on the research on cola consumption in previous years and on the anticipated consumption, defined on the basis of macroeconomic scenarios of economic growth. It also presented alternative sources of energy and the perspectives for their use in the national industry. It also discussed the benefits and threats for the natural environment, caused by the possible switch of the national economy to other energy sources. The second part of the report presented also, inter alia, the perspectives for the coke industry development and the situation of several major power consumers (heat production plans as well as heavy industry, sugar industry and concrete industry plants).
The study treated of the strategic branch of the Polish economy and the German plans to eliminate Poland from that market, so "W" was right in pointing that it would be purposeful for the top officials in the Ministry of Economy to read those materials. However, those materials were never conveyed to the appropriate state authorities. In 2002, at the request of Lt. Col. Tomasz Korpak, they were sent to 3rd Directorate WSI and in 2006 the same officer sent them back to the 2nd Directorate without taking any action. It was only in 2006 that the first memo in this case was made.
The work file of collaborator "W" also shows that the discussed document was prepared by a team of experts appointed by a foreign consulting company at the order from one of the banks. That team included the employees of Polish ministries who stole confidential information to sell it later to the consulting companies. Such actions constitute the crime of disclosure of confidential corporate information or information acquired in the course of work duties, the disclosure of which may expose a legally protected interest to danger, to unauthorized parties. The WSI did not provide that information to the law enforcement authorities, thus allowing the practices that were detrimental to the security of Poland to continue. In the collaborator’s files there is no information that any attempt was made to identify the members of the “team of experts”.
Similar to the Russian attempt to take over the Polish fuel sector, also in the discussed situation, there is a risk that the report was the first step for similar actions of the German side with respect to the Polish bituminous coal market. A lack of Polish activities in this case have not only exposed Poland’s energy security to danger, but also allowed foreign entities to analyze the strategic sectors of our economy (heat production plans as well as heavy industry, sugar industry and concrete industry plants). Due to the fact that those plants base their production on the consumption of bituminous coal, those data allow to predict, with rather high probability, their financial condition in the next few years. The foreign investors in possession of such analyses have an opportunity to steer individual branches of Polish economy.
The fuel Mafia case is one of the most grave charges against the WSI. Not only did the services know about illegal activities and tolerate them, but its soldiers were the main chain links in the Mafia and, as the fate of the ‘Little Kremlin’ report shows, the WSI protected the criminal activities of Russian services and Mafia, aimed at the destruction and take-over of the Polish energy sector.
The materials showing the WSI’s activities in the framework of control over the fuel market till 2000 are often incomplete, because they were destroyed to a great extent or concealed. The materials concerning the fuel cases kept being "sanitized" as late as on June 30, 2006, when it was already known that the WSI were going to be dissolved.
In the light of the cited facts, the conduct of the following people meets the disposition contained in Article 70a.1 and 70a.2.2 of the Act on Provisions Implementing the Act on Military Counter-Intelligence Service and Military Intelligence Service and the Act on the service of the officers of Military Counter-Intelligence Service and Military Intelligence Service, dated June 9, 2006: Brig. Gen. Marek Dukaczewski, Col. Waldemar Żak, Col. Roman Karaś, Col. Krzysztof Łada, Col. Krzysztof Surdyk, Col. Marek Szlenk, Col. Krzysztof Kłosiński, Lt. Col. Tomasz Korpak, Maj. Krzysztof Rengel, Maj. Grzegorz Sobecki.
The activities of Andrzej Macenowicz, Krzysztof Kluzek and Andrzej Grzesik meet the disposition of Article 70a.2.1 of the aforecited Act.
The WSI Chief in the described period was Brig Gen. Marek Dukaczewski.
Article 5.1 of the Act on the Office of the Minister of National Defense, dated December 14, 1995, contained the regulation stating that the Military Information Services are subordinated directly to that Minister. That regulation was specified in a greater detail in § 1.16 of the Ordinance of the Council of Ministers on the Detailed Scope of Competencies of the Minister of National Defense, dated July 9, 1996. This regulation imposed on the Minister of National Defense the obligation to exercise supervision over the activities of the Military Information Services, including in particular their operational actions and investigations. Pursuant to the Military Information Services Act of July 9, 2003, the supervision over the activities of those services rested with the Minister of National Defense who appointed and dismissed the WSI Chief.. By virtue of Article 9.1 of this Act, the WSI Chief was subordinated to the Minister of Defense directly. The Ministers of National Defense in the described period were: Bronisław Komorowski and Jerzy Szmajdziński.