Britain is doing everything to hit as hard as possible. On Thursday, the local government imposed sanctions on the Russian for cooperation with Vladimir Putin and froze his assets in the country. It suffered a lot from the one that Abramowicz had to sell after 19 years.
On Monday, the BBC aired a documentary in which it tells the story of how Abramovich defrauded the Russian government in 2005. The situation happened with the sale of the Sibneft oil company. Abramovich purchased it in 1995 at a rigged auction for $ 250 million. 10 years later, the Russian sold the company to the government for $ 13 billion, on which the country was to lose nearly $ 3 billion.
The evidence in the BBC investigation was a document smuggled from Russia, more precisely from Abramovich’s files kept by Russian law enforcement agencies. The information contained in the document was confirmed by the former Russian prosecutor general – Yuri Skuratov – who dealt with the case in the late 1990s. Skuratov assures that there were grounds to accuse Abramovich of state fraud.
The BBC accuses Roman Abramovich
Abramovich (in this case), however, never stood trial. Why? Because Abramovich was heavily protected by the then president of Russia – Boris Yeltsin. It was he who ordered the documents of the case to be transferred to the Kremlin and discredited Skuratov at the same time. A sex tape was released to the media, which caused the Russian prosecutor to resign in 1999.
– It was a criminal scheme that allowed the participants of the company’s privatization to create one criminal group. Not only Abramowicz, but also Boris Bieriezowski benefited from it. These people did not pay the government money that the companies were really worth, said Skuratov.
– I myself fell victim to this political affair. All because I was very close to Yeltsin and the privatization of Sibneft. I knew too much, I became uncomfortable – he added.
The document handed over to the BBC contains one more accusation against Abramovich and concerns the auction of another company – Slavneft. Abramovich wanted to buy it and create a partnership with other Russian oligarchs. Their rival, however, were the Chinese, who were able to offer at least twice as much money for the company.
Ultimately, however, the auction did not take place, because the Chinese withdrew from the transaction before it began. All because one of the company’s representatives was kidnapped shortly after his arrival in Moscow. Vladimir Miłow, who was Russia’s deputy energy minister at the time, did not comment on the kidnapping in the BBC, but admitted that the most important people in the country decided that Abramovich and his people were to acquire Slavneft.
While no one has confirmed that the Russian knew anything about the kidnapping of a Chinese businessman, and his lawyers call the accusations “gross,” the facts are that Abramovich ended up buying Slavneft for a much lower price than the company could get.
Source: Sport
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
