Junta troops raided the office of state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) in Zabuthiri Township, Naypyitaw on Thursday afternoon, detaining some senior officials for interrogation, according to sources close to the office.
Some of the sources said the raid was prompted by the leak of information about a secret bank account set up by the office to allow the regime to bypass international financial sanctions. MOGE provides the regime with its biggest single source of revenue by selling oil and gas abroad. It has been sanctioned by the EU.
Sources said at least 10 people, including senior officials and their staff members, were taken from the office for further interrogation.
Family members of staff at the office said they had lost contact with them since the raid. Phone calls to their relatives had gone unanswered and the office continued to be guarded by junta forces as of Friday morning, they said.
“I tried calling my former colleagues, as well as the junior level staff I know, this morning but no one picked up the call. So I tried calling the family of a colleague and learned that they were not allowed to go back home last night,” said a retired official of the Ministry of Energy, which runs MOGE.
Myanmar Now recently reported that more than US$500 million has been frozen in overseas banks since the EU imposed sanctions on MOGE last year. Following the asset freeze, the regime’s Ministry of Energy asked the Central Bank of Myanmar to set up a secret bank account for MOGE at state-owned Myanma Economic Bank (MEB) to handle international transactions, Myanmar Now reported.
The retired Ministry of Energy official said the raid and interrogations could be an attempt by the junta to prevent further information leaks inside MOGE at a time when the US and other countries may be preparing to impose more sanctions.
The Irrawaddy tried calling the MOGE office, but the calls went unanswered as of Friday afternoon.
As a state-owned enterprise, MOGE works mostly with state-owned banks. Its oil and gas revenue flows into its accounts at those banks including Myanma Foreign Trade Bank (MFTB) and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank (MICB), both of which were sanctioned by the US on June 21.
In response to the 2021 military coup and the regime’s bloody crackdowns on protesters, as well as its air strikes against civilians, rights groups have been demanding more governments impose sanctions on MOGE.
Rights group Burma Campaign UK has called on the British government to sanction the company, and Justice for Myanmar (JFM), a rights watchdog that monitors the junta’s businesses, has also called on governments, including those of the US and Japan, to do so.
