WARSAW — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk opened fire Monday against the former CEO of state oil company PKN-Orlen, accusing him of losing 1.6 billion złoty (€370 million) in a botched energy deal and calling for an investigation.

“Poles must know the truth. There's nothing to wait for!” tweeted Tusk.

The attack on former CEO Daniel Obajtek targets an executive who was the golden child of the former Law and Justice (PiS) government. Obajtek served as Orlen’s CEO from 2018 to 2024, and the company acted as a provider of jobs for the politically connected, supplied cash for party efforts, and even took over a newspaper chain which became a pro-PiS propaganda outfit.

Tusk called on Justice Minister and Chief Prosecutor Adam Bodnar, as well as the coordinator of special services, to get involved.

The prime minister's comments came after a report by news portal Onet that Obajtek had agreed to set up a Swiss-based trading arm headed by an executive identified as Samer A., a Lebanese national, despite warnings from Orlen's internal security branch. Onet is owned by Ringier Axel Springer, a joint venture by Swiss publisher Ringier and Germany's Axel Springer, the owner of POLITICO.

Orlen's security suspected Samer A. (identified only by his last initial) of having ties to the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and of being involved with sanctions-busting trade with Tehran. Obajtek disregarded those warnings and appointed Samer A. to lead Orlen Trading Switzerland (OTS).

“Today I asked the prosecutor general and the coordinator of the special services for a visit regarding a key issue for state security: the billion loss and possible links with Hezbollah of the former head of Orlen,” Tusk said.

The Lebanese manager was responsible for signing off on a crude supply deal with an oil trader who Orlen had never worked with before — a Dubai-based intermediary run by a 25-year-old from Hong Kong — Polish media reported.

Earlier this month, Orlen wrote off the 1.6 billion złoty prepayment for Venezuelan oil that was never delivered, calling it a “one-off accounting event” in a stock exchange report.

The stock market report added that the prepayment had not been returned and that Orlen “assessed the possibility to recover the owed funds as unlikely.”

Obajtek was fired in February by Tusk's new government, part of a wider purge of senior executives at state-controlled companies seen as loyal to the former PiS government that lost power after October's election. Polish political parties have traditionally treated top jobs at state companies as the spoils of power and tend to staff them with supporters.

Obajtek, previously a local politician with no national experience who had come to the attention of PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, shot to corporate stardom after PiS took power in 2015.

Under Obajtek, Orlen bulked up via a series of acquisitions. | Omar Marques/Getty Images

Under Obajtek, Orlen bulked up via a series of acquisitions, including the takeover of smaller peer Lotos, a power utility Energa, and the oil and gas company PGNiG.

Obajtek is now running for the European Parliament in June's EU election. He's the top candidate in the PiS stronghold in the southeastern Rzeszów region, meaning he's virtually certain to win a seat.

The ex-CEO insists he did nothing wrong when running Orlen.

“Prime minister, you are looking for scandals where there are none," Obajtek said on X, adding: "I have already spoken about OTS many times, you destroyed the company to go back to the same intermediaries and old arrangements.”

He also denounced what he called "slanderous" news about him published by "German media."