BBC uncovers papers said to show corrupt deals behind Abramovich fortune

The BBC says it has received documents smuggled out of Russia that allegedly detail corrupt deals that helped Russian-Israeli oligarch Roman Abramovich establish his vast fortune.

Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea soccer team, is one of several Putin-linked oligarchs sanctioned in recent days.

According to the BBC’s “Panorama” investigative program, the documents detail efforts to defraud the Russian government and say an investigation into Abromovich was quashed by politicians.

Abromovich made billions after buying an oil company from the Russian government in a rigged auction in 1995. He paid some $250 million for Sibneft, before selling it back to the Russian government for $13 billion a decade later.

According to the BBC, the document says that the Russian government was cheated out of $2.7bn in the Sibneft deal. The document also says that the Russian authorities wanted to charge Abramovich with fraud.

“The Dept. of Economic Crimes investigators came to the conclusion that if Abramovich could be brought to trial he would have faced accusations of fraud… by an organized criminal group,” the document says.

A former Russian chief prosecutor tells the BBC he was stopped from investigating Abromovich by ex-Russian president Boris Yeltsin and fired.

The document also details Abromovich’s involvement in another rigged auction two years later, involving a Russian oil company called Slavneft.

Abramovich won the auction even though a Chinese company planned to submit a bid for double the amount.

The document says a member of the Chinese delegation to Moscow was kidnapped and only released when the Chinese company pulled out of the auction.

The document did not link Abromovich to the kidnapping, noting that many groups wanted the Chinese out of the picture.

Lawyers for Abromovich say there is no basis for alleging he has amassed his very substantial wealth through criminality.