Who is Samuele Landi? Italian fugitive, Liberian diplomat, seasteader, software developer, and adviser to Blue Carbon LLC

The fact that Landi has been convicted of bankruptcy fraud doesn't seem to bother United Arab Emirates carbon offsetting firm Blue Carbon.

PHOTO Credit: Screenshot from Oswald Horowitz’s film trailer about Samuele Landi

Samuele Landi lives in international waters on a barge floating in the Persian Gulf. In December 2008, he fled from Italy to Dubai. In his absence he was sentenced to eight years in prison for bankruptcy fraud.

He’s also an adviser to Blue Carbon LLC, Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook al-Maktoum’s carbon offsetting company.

Blue Carbon was founded in October 2022. Since then, it has signed agreements with Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Liberia, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. The company has signed carbon agreements covering a total area larger than the UK.

Recently the company has turned its attention on the Caribbean, and has signed contracts with the Bahamas, Saint Lucia, and Dominica.

Samuel Landi: Bankruptcy fraud

In November 2023, Matteo Civillini reported for Climate Home News that Samuel Landi has been convicted for bankruptcy fraud in Italy.

In 2008, Landi was convicted in two separate trials in Italy. Landi’s company, Eutelia, one of Italy’s largest telecommunications companies, was shut down and more than 2,200 people lost their jobs.

Blue Carbon did not respond to requests for an interview from Climate Home News. But Landi did reply. He told Civillini that he rejected the court judgements against him. He claimed that the Italian judges who ruled against him were corrupt.

In 1998, Landi founded a company called Plug It, an Internet Service Provider and telecommunications firm. In 2003, Plug It bought EdisonTel for €137 million. In 2004, Plug It and EdisonTel merged to create Eutelia SpA. Eutelia bought a series of companies and by 2008 the company had huge debts.

Eutelia had a 36.5% share in Netcom Liberia.

The company asked the government to place most of its workers in a state-funded job retention scheme. In the meantime, the company was supposed to restructure its operations.

While that was going on, according to court records, Landi and other senior executives illegally took millions of euros out of Eutelia and put the money in shell companies, mainly incorporated outside Italy. The court ruled that Landi and his brother took about €60 million from Eutelia.

Eutelia was declared bankrupt in June 2010.

When the Italian police attempted to arrest him in 2010, Landi had already fled to Dubai. Civillini writes that Landi told Climate Home News that he didn’t move to avoid arrest, but because “he was looking for more freedom”.

In 2020, Landi was given an 8-year prison sentence on bankruptcy fraud charges. In a second case, at the court of appeal in Rome, Landi was sentenced to six years and six months.

Landi told Climate Home News that he had referred the first case to the European Court of Human Rights, and he plans to appeal against the second sentence.

Samuele Landi: Liberian diplomat

In 2018, Landi was appointed consul general in the United Arab Emirates for Liberia. He was introduced to George Weah, President of Liberia and former professional footballer. In the 1990s, he played for AC Milan, Chelsea, and Manchester City.

Landi was introduced to Weah by Tupee Enid Taylor. She’s the first wife of Liberia’s former president and convicted war criminal, Charles Taylor.

Landi told Climate Home News that, he “developed the diplomatic relations between the Liberian and the UAE governments”. This resulted in the construction of roads, hospitals, and sports centres in Liberia, according to Landi.

Climate Home News reports Landi as saying that “he accompanied a delegation from Liberia to a meeting with Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, a member of the Dubai royal family and chairman of Blue Carbon”.

Usually a consul would work with the foreign minister, but a senior Liberian government official told SourceMaterial that Landi reported to Trokon Kpui, a minister without portfolio who reported directly to President Weah.

“Landi became a very close confidante of Trokon Kpui. Most of what they wanted, Landi would be able to do,” the government official told SourceMaterial.

Landi was one of the “chief architects” of the carbon deal that Liberia signed with Blue Carbon.

Landi has limited knowledge about forests and carbon markets. Landi told Civillini that he was hired because of his technology experience. Landi runs a cybersecurity firm in Dubai that is developing fully encrypted phones.

Landi confirmed to SourceMaterial that he was involved in the deal, but denied that he played a central role. He said he had already stepped down as consul general when the deal was signed in March 2023.

Samuele Landi: Seasteader

Landi lives on a barge which is 72 metres long and 19 metres wide. Five people have lived there since 22 December 2022. The barge is anchored about 45 kilometres from the coast between Iran and United Arab Emirates.

Landi calls his barge Aisland. And he describes seasteading as “a concept for creative permanent dwelling in international water, outside the control of different governments”.

PHOTO Credit: Aisland

In January 2023, high waves sank a small boat that the seasteaders used to get supplies. They lived for 28 days without food supplies. They had 10 days of provisions and survived by catching fish.

Nevertheless, Landi reckons as many as 50 people could live on this barge. He has plans to build an Aisland Floating City for 5,000 people. The floating city is planned for the Saya de Malha, a submerged ocean bank northeast of Madagascar and southeast of Seychelles.

For just US$200,000 you can buy an apartment on the floating city, which according to the Aisland website, will be completed in the fourth quarter of 2028.

Landi told Climate Home News that,

“The idea is to create a place where people can stay without being subjected to the matrix. No one can say which kind of insects or fake meat you have to eat, which kind of injections you have to get. A libertarian state is very important.”

Landi is developing a form of blockchain governance. Needless to say, there’s an Aisland DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation) and Landi is proposing tokenising carbon credits on the blockchain.

Landi apparently wasn’t happy with Civillini’s reporting about his role in Blue Carbon. On the “news” section of Aisland website, Landi calls Civillini a “fake journalist” and accuses him of making up his journalism degree and master at the City University of London.

Predictably enough, Landi doesn’t challenge any of the content of Civillini’s reporting. It’s an ad hominem attack.

Landi has plenty more journalists to attack, with recent reporting from SourceMaterial, The Telegraph, Le Monde, Bloomberg and The Guardian about Blue Carbon.

Incidentally, while I was writing this post, Blue Carbon’s website was down: