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Abramovich’s lawyers say there is no evidence once morest him of criminal activity
the owner of the english football club Chelsea made billions following buying an oil company from the Russian government in a rigged auction in 1995.
Abramovich paid around US$250 million for Sibneft, before returning to sell ita to the Russian government for $13 billion in 2005.
His attorneys say there is no basis to claim that he amassed very substantial wealth through criminal activities.
In the midst of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian billionaire was sanctioned by the UK government last week because of his links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Abramovich’s assets have been frozen and he is no longer Chelsea’s club manager.
The Russian billionaire has already admitted in a UK court that he made corrupt payments to help get the Sibneft deal off the ground.
was sued in London by his former business partner Boris Berezovsky in 2012.
Abramovich won the case, but described in court how the original Sibneft auction was manipulated in your favor and how he gave Berezovsky $10 million to pay a Kremlin official.
secret document
The program of the BBC Panorama has obtained a document believed to have been smuggled out of Russia.
The information was given to the show by a confidential source, who says it was secretly copied from files Russian law enforcement agencies had on Abramovich.
The BBC cannot verify this information, but the confirmations with other sources in Russia have endorsed many of the details in the five-page document.
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Abramovich has left the direction of Chelsea.
The document says the Russian government was bilked out of $2.7 billion in the Sibneft deal, a claim backed up by a 1997 Russian parliamentary investigation. It also indicates Russian authorities wanted to accuse Abramovich of fraud.
“Investigators from the Department of Economic Crimes concluded that if Abramovich might be brought to trialwould have faced accusations of fraud (…) as part of an organized criminal group”.
Panorama sought out Russia’s former chief prosecutor, who investigated the deal in the 1990s.
Yuri Skuratov was not aware of the secret document, but independently confirmed many of the details regarding it. the sale of Sibneft.
Skuratov said on the show: “Basically, it was a fraudulent scheme, in which those who participated in the privatization formed a criminal group that allowed Abramovich and Berezovsky fool the government and not pay the money that this company was really worth”.
The document also suggests that Abramovich was protected by former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
He says that the police files on Abramovich moved to the Kremlin and that the president stopped an investigation of Skuratov.
The document says: “Skuratov was preparing a criminal case for the confiscation of Sibneft on the basis of the investigation of its privatization. The investigation was stopped by President Yeltsin (…) Skuratov was removed from office.”
Skuratov was fired following publishing a sex tape in 1999. She says it was a plot to discredit him and his investigation.
“This was all obviously political, because in my research I became very close to the family of Boris Yeltsin, including through this investigation of the privatization of Sibneft,” he said.
Abramovich remained in the inner circle of the Kremlin when Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000.
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Abramovich has been close to Vladimir Putin
The document contains details of another rigged auction two years later, involving a Russian oil company called Slavneft.
Abramovich formed a partnership with another firm to buy Slavneftbut a rival Chinese company planned to offer almost twice as much.
Many powerful people, from the Kremlin to the Russian Parliament, would have lost out if the Chinese won the auction.
The document says that a member of the Chinese delegation was kidnapped when he arrived in Moscow for the auction.
“CNPC, a Chinese company, a very strong competitorhad to withdraw from the auction following one of its representatives was kidnapped upon arrival at Moscow airport and released only following the company declared its withdrawal.”
The kidnapping story is supported by independent sources who were unaware of the document.
Vladimir Milov was Russia’s deputy energy minister in the run-up to the sale of Slavneft. He did not comment on the kidnapping storybut said important political figures had already decided that Abramovich’s partnership would win the auction.
“I said, ‘look, the Chinese want to get in and they want to pay a much higher price.’ And they say ‘never mind, shut up, it’s none of your business. It’s already decided. Slavneft goes to Abramovich, the price is agreed. The Chinese will be expelled somehow ‘”.
There is no indication that Abramovich knew anything regarding the kidnapping plot or played any role in it.
His lawyers told the BBC that the kidnapping claim “has no foundation” and that he “has no knowledge of such an incident”.
Different factions had been fighting for control of Slavneft and there was widespread opposition to the Chinese offer.
Whatever the reason for the Chinese withdrawal, the abramovich society he had the only offer left on the table. And they bought Slavneft at a very low price.
Abramovich’s lawyers say the accusations of corruption in the Slavneft and Sibneft deals are false, and he denies that Yeltsin protect.
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