Abramovich 'hid billions with help of top British accounting firm Deloitte'

Roman Abramovich has always had a no-nonsense approach to business.

And when the state-owned Russian oil company Slavneft was put up for sale in 2002, the Moscow-based oligarch didn't mess about.

Unfortunately for the former owner of Chelsea FC, a Chinese oil giant called CNPC put in a bid double the £1.86billion that Abramovich was offering – and the men from Beijing headed to Russia to seal the deal.

As the Chinese delegation was leaving Moscow airport, a key member of the group was abducted at gunpoint.

The Chinese got the message. After hastily withdrawing from the auction, their kidnap victim was released, they took the next flight home – and Abramovich added another discount acquisition to his multi-billion energy empire.

Given his long record of financial chicanery, from stealing a trainload of diesel as a young man to giving a £10million bribe to a Kremlin official, it comes as no surprise that he was this week caught out in yet another money-making scam.

An investigation by the BBC's Panorama programme appears to show that associates of Abramovich conspired with British headquartered Deloitte – the world's biggest accountancy firm – to falsify documents in a bid to hide elements of his wealth and evade tax.

The 'dirty work' was apparently carried out by a smaller company MeritServus, with Deloitte signing it all off.

A BBC Panorama investigation appeared to show associates of former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich conspired with accountancy firm Deloitte to hide elements of his wealth

Abramovich was one of many Russians who set up firms in the tax haven of Cyprus between 1995 and 2022 to squirrel away profits from their homeland.

But when the Cypriot government suddenly introduced a 'transparency law' that required accounts to be made public, Abramovich faced the prospect of his vast wealth being exposed.

At the time the law was brought in, Deloitte Cyprus had prepared draft accounts for Abramovich's Cypriot company, Amiscan Investments, which owned many of his properties and playthings.

This included Fyning Hill, a 424-acre estate in West Sussex, his luxury apartment in London, the Chateau de la Croe in the South of France (formerly owned by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor), and his fleets of superyachts and private jets. This portfolio alone added up to £508million.

Horrified details may become public, Abramovich's associates and 'corporate services firm' MeritServus decided, as the BBC put it, to 'rewrite history'.

MeritServus produced a set of accounts that purported to show the assets had been transferred to Amiscan's parent company in the British Virgin Islands in 2003, and so did not have to be declared.

Instead of pushing back, Deloitte Cyprus signed off the new accounts that showed a balance of just $75,000.

MeritServus used a similar ploy to evade tax on the interest earned on two other massive Abramovich assets: the $2billion lodged with his company Kravin Investments and $10billion with Electus Investments.

In the case of Electus, after the transfer to the British Virgin Islands had been safely backdated, the public accounts in 2006 showed it had assets worth just $145,000 (£110,000). Billions had simply 'disappeared'.

All this came to light as a result of a leak in 2023 dubbed 'Cyprus Confidential' of more than 3.6 million documents from six Cypriot firms, including MeritServus.

Nobody is admitting any bad behaviour, of course.

Deloitte, the world's biggest accountancy firm, is headquartered in Britain

A law firm representing Abramovich, 59, told the BBC he was 'not involved in the day-to-day operation of those companies [Amiscan, Kravin and Electus]' and that, where arrangements were proposed by professional advisers, 'reliance on that advice was entirely proper and legitimate'.

Deloitte Cyprus said it could not comment because the documents were more than 20 years old and no longer accessible, while MeritServus closed following the Cyprus Confidential leak.

The foundation of Abramovich's wealth has long been mired in controversy. He made his billions by buying a state-owned oil company in a rigged auction in 1995, paying just £190million for Sibneft, which he sold back to the Russian government for £10billion in 2005 – 52 times what he paid.

A handful of the hustlers who obtained Russia's 'family silver' in deals with then president Boris Yeltsin during the 1990s soon landed ostentatiously on the streets of London.

Deloitte was just one of hundreds of blue-chip organisations that succumbed to the attraction of a quick buck. Private bankers, 'Magic Circle' lawyers, top-drawer accountants and high-end estate agents made small fortunes from the 'New Russians'.

One estate agent described his Russian clients 'gleefully plonking saddlebags of cash on the desk'.

Sadly, for London's professional services firms, the Russian gravy train hit the buffers when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Abramovich was forced to sell his beloved Chelsea FC and the £2.5billion proceeds have been held in escrow ever since.

Meanwhile, his UK homes and those of other sanctioned oligarchs are locked in legal limbo and falling into disrepair.

These may prove to be dark days for the Deloittes of this world.

Dominic Midgley is the author of Abramovich, The Billionaire From Nowhere