The Sentry
Magnate of Seas and Skies
Gadalla’s commercial expansion includes a foray into both maritime logistics and private aviation. Since May 2024, UDS Shipping Services LLC, a Dubaibased company founded the previous year, has appeared in Lloyd’s Sea searcher database—an authoritative international reference for maritime intelligence covering vessel tracking and ownership screening—as belonging to Ahmed Gadalla’s Alushibe Group.
In May and July 2024, UDS Shipping Services acquired two similar container ships, the Aya 1 and Aya 2, named after Gadalla’s daughter. During the autumn of 2025, the vessels were renamed Zulfa 1 and Zulfa 2, respectively, after one of Gadalla’s Benghazi-based companies. Evidence gathered by The Sentry further confirms that Gadalla indeed controls and runs UDS Shipping’s activities.
While the Aya 1 drew significant global attention after it was intercepted by the Greek and Italian navies in July 2025 owing to suspected arms smuggling, both vessels may also have been involved in fuel smuggling. Their itineraries show repeated movements from various Libyan ports—namely, Tobruk, Benghazi, alKhums, and Misrata—to the UAE, where they conduct ship-to-ship transfers.
The frequency of those transfers combined with the vessels’ reported draft and other evidence gathered by The Sentry suggests that UDS Shipping lifts fuel at Libyan ports and sells it off at or near Emirati ports like Jebel Ali and Fujairah. Moreover, both vessels have on occasion disabled their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders—a tactic commonly used to conceal illicit maritime activity.346 After their Gulf visits, both ships typically head for Indian hubs, such as Kandla and Mundra, to pick up unknown cargo.
All in all, UDS Shipping’s activities present enough red flags to warrant further scrutiny. UNSCR 2769, adopted in January 2025, condemns attempts to illicitly export refined petroleum products from Libya and renews the authority of member states to inspect and interdict suspect shipments. UDS Shipping Services LLC did not respond to The Sentry’s request for comment.
Another Dubai-based company controlled by Gadalla, al-Mored Oasis General Trading, bought an almost-new Airbus ACJ319neo airplane in November 2024. The purchase price likely exceeded $70 million. The jet, which features a 19-passenger corporate interior, is registered in Aruba as P4-KH519.
From November 2024 through January 2026, while under Gadalla’s control, the aircraft flew frequently between Benghazi, Dubai, and Paris. A secondary circuit by the same plane has included London, Toronto, Amman, and Riyadh. Flight logs also show occasional stops in EU cities—Nice, Palermo, Munich, Milan, and Larnaca—as well as intercontinental trips to Jakarta and Kuta, Indonesia.
The logs even record a brief stop in Las Vegas on September 16, 2025. In June and December 2025, Field Marshal Haftar and his two sons, Khaled and Saddam, traveled on this aircraft for official meetings with President al-Sisi in Egypt. Overall, the plane seems to have served partly as a personal aircraft for Gadalla himself and partly as a transport for the Haftar family on official visits abroad. While al-Mored Oasis sold the plane to another Dubai based company, Forte Strategy Aviation LLC, in late January 2026, members of the Haftar family have continued to use the plane.
The Sentry could not independently verify whether the sale of the aircraft was followed by any arrangement between Gadalla and Forte Strategy.
Gadalla’s Expansion into Libya’s
“Legitimate” Economy
As his notoriety has grown, Gadalla has made efforts to project the image of a genuine entrepreneur, launching high-profile ventures to boost his legitimacy. Gadalla also funds philanthropic activities in Benghazi.
Steel Plant in Benghazi
In July 2024, Gadalla announced a partnership with Tosyalı Holding, a Turkish company, to build the “world’s largest iron steel plant” in Benghazi’s eastern outskirts. News wires officially presented Gadalla as chairman of the Libya United Steel Company for Iron and Steel Industry (SULB), driving economic development and job creation.
Ten months later, Saddam Haftar himself endorsed the Tosyalı-SULB partnership and the would-be steel mega-plant. This alignment demonstrates Gadalla and Saddam’s tight collaboration, despite Gadalla denying any financial arrangements with the Haftar family.
Telecom and Commercial Aviation
Beyond his involvement in finance and banking, Gadalla maintains substantial interests in various other enterprises within eastern Libya’s private sector. In the geopolitically charged domain of telecommunications, he helped the Haftar family establish Ozon, a new mobile operator headquartered in Benghazi. The venture, initially designed to involve Chinese firm Huawei, challenged the authority of Tripoli-based regulators over Libya’s network infrastructure.
In December 2024, the Ministry of Communications and Informatics under the Haftar-controlled government announced it had opened a tender for a comprehensive telecommunications operator license. A few months later, in May 2025, the Haftar-aligned ministry divulged that it had awarded Ozon the comprehensive license and authorized the start-up company to begin work. Tripoli-based regulators rejected the move, arguing that the GNU’s General Authority for Communications and Informatics alone was legally authorized to issue, suspend, or revoke such licenses.
In August 2025, the GNU briefly suspended Huawei’s activities in Libya, alleging violations of national and international law, including contracts with unauthorized entities. The incident stemmed from eastern authorities asking the CBL for a $198 million down payment on a $700 million Huawei contract for Ozon without coordinating with the GNU. If a Chinese conglomerate can strike a direct deal with the Haftar-aligned telecom authorities, it could position itself to secure the nationwide network, or at least shut out Western suppliers such as Nokia from Tripoli-linked infrastructure contracts.
By December 2025, however, there were indications that the Haftar family was dialing back its direct telecom engagement with Chinese firms. Nevertheless, even though ultimate control of the Ozon endeavor rests with Saddam Haftar, Gadalla’s 60% ownership stake establishes him as the formal majority owner, departing from his previously established pattern of serving merely as an informal intermediary between the Haftars and a company’s nominal executives.
Gadalla is also said to influence another private company—Medsky Airways, which was launched in 2022 by Misrata magnate Mohammed Taher Issa and then sold two years later to Fauzi al-Muqla, a Benghazi-based entrepreneur with close ties to Saddam Haftar. According to The Sentry’s sources, regardless of the shareholders who appear on paper, ultimate control of Medsky Airways sits with Saddam Haftar now, and in turn, Gadalla has a say in the company’s day‑to‑day decisions.
The airline’s financial operations—from letters of credit for aircraft leasing to liquidity for payroll—run through banks that Gadalla controls or influences, meaning his sign-off is a prerequisite for Medsky’s day-to-day viability.
Muqla’s formal ownership and Gadalla’s banking leverage functioning as successive layers of a single chain of command leading back to Saddam Haftar. Muqla is also involved in two other private Libyan airlines: he serves as president of Buraq Air’s general assembly and holds a stake in Berniq Airways. Neither Gadalla nor Medsky responded to The Sentry’s request for comment.
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