Aides of Roman Abramovich – including staff at the global accountancy firm Deloitte – falsified paperwork mapping the oligarch’s sprawling offshore business empire, records suggest, helping his businesses dodge tax and disguise assets.
New analysis of leaked corporate records uncovers what appears to have been a long-running and carefully orchestrated strategy of backdating documents.
The Russian billionaire’s closest aide, London-based Eugene Tenenbaum, appears to have been involved in the backdating and may also have given false evidence to the UK high court during a potentially costly lawsuit, the papers indicate.
Abramovich’s personal and financial affairs are now restricted, owing to sanctions imposed by the UK and EU in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
But the documents raise questions about how Abramovich was able to shield his financial affairs from the authorities for more than a decade, with the apparent assistance of apparatchiks and blue-chip advisers.
The findings are based on the Cyprus Confidential leak, more than 500,000 documents, first released to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and analysed by organisations including the Guardian, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the BBC.
Eugene Tenenbaum with Roman Abramovich at a Chelsea FC match. Photograph: Matthew Ashton/Corbis/Getty Images
The digital paper trail charts the reorganisation of billions of pounds that the former Chelsea FC owner obtained via the controversial acquisition of oilfields in the frozen wastes of Siberia, amid the break-up of the Soviet Union.
From 1999 until at least 2013, a cadre of aides and accountants tasked with shifting the funds between offshore jurisdictions deployed tactics that experts say may have constituted fraud and tax evasion.
This, it seems, involved backdating documents to create a convenient paper trail showing that agreements and transactions had taken place years earlier.
Lawyers for Abramovich denied any wrongdoing and said he relied on the advice of his advisers and Deloitte Cyprus. Tenenbaum denied any wrongdoing and said he also relied on the specialist advice given by Deloitte Cyprus. Deloitte Cyprus said that it “acts in compliance with all applicable laws” and that it could no longer access the relevant material because of the time that has elapsed.
The disappearing $2bn
A crown jewel in Russia’s rich seam of natural resources, Sibneft’s oilfields fell into Abramovich’s hands during the chaotic post-Soviet privatisation era.
The famously shrewd entrepreneur obtained the business for roughly $250m, reportedly spending as little as $19m of his own money.
By the time he sold the last of his shares to Gazprom in 2005, Abramovich had raised $16bn, money he ploughed into investments, mansions, superyachts and Chelsea FC.
One Cyprus-based company, Kravin Investments, was among several early vehicles through which that cash flowed. Kravin received a $3bn windfall in May 2003, of which it retained about $2bn.
The money sat in Kravin’s bank account or was loaned to other companies, accruing interest that was, in theory, taxable in Cyprus.
But Abramovich’s aides soon began devising plans to “eliminate” a tax liability that one financial adviser warned could be “very large”, records suggest.
Demetris Ioannides was the chair of Deloitte Cyprus before spinning out Meritservus. Photograph: No Credit
The gatekeeper to Abramovich’s fortune was Demetris Ioannides, who was the chair of Deloitte Cyprus before spinning out his own business Meritservus. That firm became Abramovich’s go-to financial advisory, serving him for nearly 20 years, before it was sanctioned by the UK in 2023, along with Ioannides, for its role helping Russian oligarch hide their wealth.
“It will be necessary to change the [Kravin’s] financial statements and the accounting records accordingly for 2003 and 2004,” Ioannides wrote in August 2005 email, citing discussions with Deloitte Cyprus partners and erstwhile colleagues Antonis Taliotis and Nicos Charalambous.
The following month, in an email copying in staff at Meritservus and Abramovich’s investment vehicle, Millhouse, Taliotis appeared to agree.
“Certain changes will have to be made to the accounts […]” he wrote.
An August 2005 email from Demetris Ioannides. Photograph: –
Millhouse and Meritservus duly began producing paperwork showing that Kravin was simply holding and investing the Sibneft billions as a trustee for another business, the British Virgin Islands-based Kelvedon Worldwide.
Documents detailing this supposed fact, including correspondence and trust agreements, were given dates between March and December 2003, despite being created at least two years later.
The result was simple: although the billions had sat in Kravin’s accounts for years, it now appeared that the money had never really been Kravin’s at all. Deloitte Cyprus, apparently aware of the deception, duly signed off the accounts.
History had effectively been rewritten, analysis of the documents suggests, disappearing $2bn from Kravin’s balance sheet – and with it any tax liability.
Andrew Mitchell KC, a leading expert in financial crime and tax law, described the scheme as a “blatant move to protect from legitimate taxation assets which should otherwise have been subject to tax”. This, he claimed, would amount to “straightforward” tax evasion.
Abramovich’s lawyers said: “Any suggestion that our client evaded tax, or sought to deceive the Cypriot authorities, is denied, and publication of the same would be defamatory of him. If an arrangement was proposed by professional advisers of Deloitte’s standing, it would have been entirely proper for companies linked to our client (in which he was not involved on a day-to-day basis) to rely on it.”
The oligarch’s signature
It was not the first time that Abramovich’s subordinates appear to have resorted to backdating to solve a money problem for their boss.
In 2000, Tenenbaum and Ioannides, then still working for Deloitte Cyprus, met in London to discuss a delicate matter.
Abramovich, it seemed, wanted to extract almost $100m from Cypriot companies that held stakes in Sibneft.
According to Ioannides, it was essential that any transaction couldn’t reveal these Cyprus companies and that the money had to appear “earned”. The logic for these conditions was not explained.
Deloitte Cyprus’s solution was a complicated but seemingly bogus arrangement, directly involving Abramovich, that appears to have relied on falsified, backdated consultancy agreements.
These agreements appeared to show that Abramovich’s Sibneft-owning companies had paid an intermediary business $98m for “consultancy services”, namely advice on share purchases.
That intermediary had then supposedly passed on 99.9% of the money to Abramovich, as “commission” for having acted as its “agent”.
But the share purchases in question had already happened a year earlier, meaning the intermediary company had to be at least a year old too, if backdated deals involving it were to appear legitimate.
Ioannides found a suitable Cypriot off-the-shelf company called PB Mediapower Enterprises.
With Tenenbaum’s authorisation, directors of Deloitte Cyprus signed the backdated documents and incorporated their content into PB Mediapower’s annual accounts.
Abramovich’s commission was then converted into promissory notes – effectively IOUs – which he cashed in over the following three years.
An application for repayment of a promissory note issued by PB Mediapower in 2000. Photograph: –
The leaked files contain 50 such notes. Unlike much of the paper trail tracing the Abramovich fortune, which kept his name out of it, each of the applications for repayment of the notes bore his signature.
Lawyers for Abramovich and Tenenbaum denied that they had participated in any improper backdating or falsification of documents. Both also stressed that they relied on specialist advice from professional advisers such as Deloitte Cyprus as well as Cypriot corporate advisers.
The ghost house
One of Abramovich’s most prestigious assets was the Fyning Hill estate in West Sussex, an imposing mansion set in 424 acres of South Downs countryside.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, reportedly flew in for lunch here during his first UK state visit in 2003.
Two years later, accounts show, the estate was listed among $650m of luxury assets – including a London penthouse, French chateau, helicopters, jets, yachts and a supercar – all held in a Cypriot company, Amiscan Investments.
New Cypriot disclosure rules, introduced in 2003, meant that these would have to be included in Amiscan’s accounts.
But by the time those accounts were filed, this vast billionaire’s toybox had vanished, thanks to Abramovich’s squad of financial fixers.
In an October 2005 email, sent to Tenenbaum, Ioannides suggested it might be “more prudent not to disclose” them.
An October 2005 email from Demetris Ioannides to Eugene Tenenbaum. Photograph: –
Files show that Abramovich aides, including Ioannides, worked together to backdate contractual agreements, giving the false impression that Amiscan’s assets had been shifted to its BVI shareholder, Kelvedon Worldwide, at the start of 2003.
Deloitte Cyprus staff took part in discussions about this disappearing act, emails show.
Yet the auditor signed off Amiscan’s accounts, now showing no trace of three properties and a fleet of luxury vehicles.
Lawyers for Abramovich and Tenenbaum denied wrongdoing of any sort, including improper backdating, falsification, or any sort of tax evasion. They each also said that their clients could not recall the context or detail of documents more than 20 years old, which had not been provided to them by the Guardian.
Both said their clients had relied on expert advice, including from Deloitte Cyprus. Deloitte Cyprus, also answering on behalf of Taliotis and Charalambous, said that it “acts in compliance with applicable laws”. It said the correspondence were more than 20 years old and no longer accessible, meaning it could not comment on whether the material was complete or accurate.
A view of central Limassol in Cyprus, with the offices of MeritServus on the left of the picture. Photograph: Hernandez Jose Maria/Alamy
A lawyer for Demetris Ioannides said he was unable to comment for personal reasons.
Lawyers for Tenenbaum said that documents could sometimes be backdated for legitimate reasons, such as to show when a transaction became effective.
Rachel Sexton, a forensic accountant experienced in fraud investigations, agreed that this was possible but added: “From the evidence I have seen, this does not appear to be the case.”
She said backdating documents to create a false impression “could be considered to be fraudulent misrepresentation.”
Two more accounting experts, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the files did not appear to show legitimate reasons for backdating.
Mitchell raised concerns about Deloitte’s apparent role in the tactic.
“What you take away from it is that there are professionals who are prepared to bend and break the rules of their profession and therefore the law.”
In one instance, backdating appears to have led to something else very serious: the misleading of a British court.
Abramovich’s Sibneft deals made him Russia’s richest man. Photograph: Alexander Natruskin/ReutersThe whole truth
In 2008, Abramovich faced the prospect of a potentially costly lawsuit from Moscow businessman Chalva Tchigrinski, a former partner in their joint oil venture, Sibneft-Yugra.
The partnership ended with Tchigrinski’s company, Sibir, ousted and left with nothing, leaving Abramovich free to sign the Sibneft deals that would make him Russia’s richest man.
Tchigrinski’s lawyers claimed foul play.
Abramovich, they claimed, had diluted his partner’s stake via a series of secret meetings that gave him full control and, as a result, the full financial benefit of the eventual sale to Gazprom.
In a witness statement, Tenenbaum denied any knowledge of the project’s details before spring 2004, when Sibir’s made its complaints public.
“I have searched my files, emails and documents from 2002 to 2004,” he told the court, “and I can confirm that I have in my possession no records or documents or other communications that relate to Sibneft-Yugra.”
Files from the Cyprus Confidential leak appear to contradict this testimony.
They show that Tenenbaum signed off on a string of agreements governing some of the very deals he claimed in court to know nothing about.
They include the 2003 transfer of Sibneft-Yugra shares to an Abramovich-owned company called Ferenco Investment & Services, something Tenenbaum had told the court he knew nothing about.
His testimony, according to the judgment, was “corroborated by” evidence submitted by Abramovich. The Guardian has not seen this evidence.
What is more, documents submitted to the court in support of Abramovich’s case, which purported to justify Sibneft’s takeover of Sibir, appear to have been backdated.
In other words, the documents – like Tenenbaum’s testimony – appear to have been false.
Lawyers for Tenenbaum denied that his testimony misled the court, saying he had given evidence “honestly and in good faith” and denied “in the strongest terms” misleading the court. Lawyers for Abramovich denied that his corroboration of Tenenbaum’s testimony had misled the court.
All in all, analysis of the Cyprus files suggest that more than 1,000 documents pertaining to the Abramovich empire were backdated.
Often, it appears, this took place with the knowledge of those closest to the oligarch.
Between them, that inner circle constructed a globe-spanning financial empire whose most important currency was, it seems, deceit.
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