Former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich used a network of financial consultants to systematically hide his vast fortune and avoid tax liabilities, a massive investigation by BBC reveals. The journalistic team has obtained documentation that contains evidence of the deliberate falsification and backdating of financial statements in order to conceal transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
At the center of the scheme are a consulting firm in Cyprus, including individuals associated with the international giant Deloitte.
One of the most striking examples in the investigation concerns the company „Amiscan Investments“. The company's initial 2003 financial statements listed the Russian oligarch's luxury assets totaling $672 million.
The list of holdings included:
Luxury properties in the UK and France;
Private jets;
The superyacht “Pelorus“ (Pelorus), valued at $147.5 million.
Through subsequent adjustments to the documentation and backdated contracts, these assets were transferred to shell companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and deleted from public records.
Investigators have also turned their attention to another company - „Kravin Investments“, through whose accounts nearly $2 billion passed. Through specially prepared false documents, the funds were registered as the property of a third party, which allowed Abramovich to avoid taxation in Cyprus.
Financial crime experts emphasize to BBC that the documented actions bear all the legal hallmarks of fraud, although there is still no official court decision in the case.
Roman Abramovich categorically denies all accusations of illegal actions. His legal representatives told the BBC that there was no evidence that the billionaire knew about the manipulations or personally ordered them. The Cyprus branch of Deloitte also issued a statement, saying that the company had always strictly complied with the law, but that it no longer had the archives from the period in question. The revelations come against the backdrop of strict international sanctions imposed on Russian oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. We recall that the British government has included Abramovich in the sanctions list, and the authorities of the island of Jersey have frozen his assets worth 5.4 billion pounds. However, the investigations into his financial empire continue to reveal new details.