Swiss prosecutors raided the Geneva offices of commodity trader Gunvor as part of a criminal investigation into suspected bribery of foreign public officials, dealing a fresh blow to the company’s efforts to rehabilitate its reputation following a series of prior corruption convictions, the Financial Times reported.

The raid, which took place in May and was first reported by Swiss campaign group Public Eye, came after Gunvor notified authorities that it had allegedly been the victim of a $2-million fraud perpetrated by a counterparty, a maritime services provider, and a former employee, the FT said. Gunvor said it is “co-operating with all inquiring authorities” and that the company itself is “not a target” of the Swiss investigation, according to the report.

Swiss authorities said in a statement that they had conducted a search of Gunvor’s offices as part of a criminal investigation opened against persons unknown for suspected bribery of foreign public officials.

The sequence of events traces back to 2024, when Gunvor completed an $800 million deal involving the Gabon Oil Company and Assala Energy. Gunvor said it launched an internal investigation in 2025 after a third party, Vakana Invest, brought a financial claim connected to that deal. That internal inquiry found no corruption or bribery related to the Assala transaction, but separately uncovered alleged fraudulent overcharges of approximately $2 million by a counterparty over a 5-year period, the newspaper said. 

Gunvor said it fired the employee involved and filed a criminal complaint in Dubai against the counterparty for fraud, according to the FT. 

The raid is the latest setback for Gunvor, which Swiss prosecutors have convicted twice on corruption-related charges. In 2019, Swiss authorities convicted the company for failing to take adequate measures to prevent employees and agents from bribing public officials. A separate 2024 conviction, coordinated with U.S. authorities, found Gunvor criminally liable for failing to prevent its employees from bribing foreign officials in connection with oil contracts in Ecuador. The company banned the use of third-party agents in 2020 as part of its anti-corruption remediation measures, the FT said.

The investigation comes at a difficult moment for the company’s new leadership. Gunvor’s billionaire co-founder and majority shareholder Torbjörn Törnqvist was forced to step aside last year after the U.S. Treasury Department called the company “the Kremlin’s puppet” and blocked its bid to acquire Russian oil company Lukoil’s international assets, the news outlet said.