Boris Berezovsky Found Dead

Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky found dead. BBC.co.uk, 23 March 2013.

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The exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has been found dead at his home in Surrey.

The circumstances of the death of the 67-year-old - a wanted man in Russia, and an opponent of President Vladimir Putin - are not yet known.

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I'm not going to lie and say that I'll shed any tears at the death of Boris Berezovsky.

There haa been a string of deaths/murders of prominent Russian exiles in the UK of late; Berezovsky is now the most prominent of them. He may well have killed himself though - he had recently lost a significant part of his (plundered) fortune in a high profile lawsuit.

I will try to post some background and analysis on him soon; but frankly nothing about Russia is simple, and it will take some time to prepare (his death was just announced an hour or so ago).

Reports a CBRN team is sweeping the Berezovsky property in Berkshire. (Note: Berezovsky was central to the Alexander Litvinenko incident.)

....MF'er may well have had his plunder laid up in Cyprus (as many a Russian oligarch do) and just decided to end it before things got really ugly!

His last interview to a Forbes journalist, hours before his passing:http://translate.google.com/translat...23.UU5Jkb2E51E

A Tweet implied the journalist had left the UK.

From a Tweet by the BBC's Gordon Corera:

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Friend of Berezovsky tells me he went from 6-10 bodyguards to 1 but still does not think he was killed. Believes heart attack most likely

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One of the better Berezovsky obits/overviews I've read:

How Boris Berezovsky Made Vladimir Putin, and Putin Unmade Berezovsky, by Owen Matthews. The Daily Beast, 24 March 2013.

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Berezovsky was the architect of post-Soviet Russia not once but twice. His first invention was the devilish Yeltsin-era equation where the rich carved out great chunks of state property, then turned their money into power over and over again. They called these men oligarchs, though in truth only one of the seven original oligarchs—Berezovsky himself—was ever politically powerful enough to deserve the title. Yeltsin may have made Russia free, but it was Berezovsky who made it for sale. And not just oil companies and TV stations but every Russian institution, including the press, Parliament, and police, were also bought up by rival oligarchs who used their tame ministers, editors, and cops to take down their enemies.

But it’s Berezovsky’s second legacy that we live with today: Vladimir Putin.

Putin was Berezovsky’s creation. That sounds somehow controversial now, but none of the key players would seriously deny that Berezovsky was the prime mover in the search for a successor to the ailing Yeltsin—a successor who would be popular with the Russian people yet preserve the wealth and privileges of the Family who selected him. In Putin, once the faithful sidekick and enforcer for the liberal St. Petersburg mayor, Anatoly Sobchak, Berezovsky thought he’d found a safe pair of hands. He was, of course wrong: within three years of coming to power Putin had put one leading oligarch in jail (Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who remains in a Siberian prison camp to this day), and two more, including Berezovsky, had fled for their lives.

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Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch found lying on his bathroom floor with a ligature around his neck, was in good spirits the night before his died and was looking forward to a holiday to Israel, according to his girlfriend.

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A twenty-three year old girlfriend and a holiday in Israel.

How about the lone bodyguard, very particular in his duties - not:

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He was last seen alive at 9.05pm last Friday by the same bodyguard who found him at around 3.20pm on Saturday, March 23.

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Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ore-death.html

The presence of Russian criminal or "shady" investors in the UK regularly gets media attention, although with apparently little action and this short article provides some background:http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russ...fe41-407789593

I am sure the investments pay for far more than school fees, even buying newspapers (The Independent and London's Evening Standard). The purchase of property in "up-market' parts of London recently had some attention.

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The death of Russian businessman linked as a witness to a high-profile corruption scandal is not suspicious, according to Surrey Police. Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44, collapsed and died in the road near his home in Weybridge, Surrey, on the evening of 10 November.

Mr Perepilichnyy had been described as a former business partner of one of the people accused by Magnitsky of fraud.

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Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-22814331