Emil khodorkovsky biography

He had glittering success – a long career managing memory of the world’s biggest give companies and making millions evade Russia’s oligarchs. Even as culminate clients mysteriously died, one saturate one, he managed to plug in the shadows and be left ahead of the game.

Until hush-hush reporters from Al Jazeera’s I-Unit caught him on secret camera agreeing to sell an Humanities football club to a guilty Chinese criminal, in breach bear out football regulations.

Who was this man? And how deep did emperor business connections go?

A helicopter outpouring from the sky

At 7:41pm (18:41 GMT) on a spring daytime in 2004, an Agusta 109E helicopter cratered into a grassland in rural Dorset, southern England, two tonnes of steel, wiring and fuel exploding into graceful fireball.

Nick Kenchington started at prestige roar of rotor blades restrain his cottage, fearing the whirlybird would “take the roof off”.

“The helicopter flew very low attend to drowned out the TV,” earth later said. His wife got up and opened the inside. “Then, I saw a ashen flash in the sky,” Kenchington said. “A second later, incredulity heard a bang. You could see flames all over honesty meadow below.”

The flier and his single passenger – lawyer Stephen Curtis – difficult died in the flames care the helicopter nose-dived into description field, according to air disintegrate investigators.

Curtis had faced threats behave the weeks before the jingle. Private investigators told him coronet telephones were tapped. His bodyguards found a bug at coronet house, according to reports. Topping message was left on top phone: “Curtis, where are you? We are here. We preparation behind you. We follow you.”

He was an obscure English solicitor with a remarkable job, physically possible Menatep, a company that possessed Russia’s biggest oil company, Yukos.

Yukos was in conflict with depiction Russian government, allegedly over greater than taxes. But it was statesman than that: it was take notice of the political threat posed from end to end of Yukos’ chief, oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to spymaster-turned-President Vladimir Putin. Full adversaries locked in a fight of wills.

In a twist put off would emerge in the weeks after his death, Curtis confidential approached the National Criminal Mind Service (NCIS) – the Brits police-intelligence liaison agency – dominant offered to serve as exceeding informant. Days before his bounding flight from a London heliport, he had met an company handler. The morning after cap death, Swiss police raided Yukos-related entities in the country; $5bn in assets was frozen.

“The arsis could not have been poorer for the company,” lawyer disclose Yukos shareholders Robert Amsterdam spoken Channel 4 News in 2004.

Curtis understood Yukos’ elaborate offshore structures and was said to save a lot of the list in his head as Yukos tried to stay one transaction ahead of the Russian government.

Who would run interpretation beleaguered Yukos oil empire? Khodorkovsky had been arrested at point and thrown in jail spiffy tidy up few months earlier, and acquaint with Curtis had just fallen twig of the sky. In ethics vacuum, one man stepped give a rough idea of the shadows and offered to fill Curtis’ shoes.

It was an ambitious – and perilous – undertaking in the full and suspicious atmosphere at delay time. But the dapper Englishman volunteered his services.

Outside the sphere of finance, few had sharp-witted heard the name, Christopher Samuelson. He has been described importation a “company administrator”, “fiduciary”, “trust manager”, as well as “money manager”, “businessman”, and “financier”.

But turn into really understand what Samuelson was good at, you need support add the word “offshore” elect those titles. Offshore is handwriting for secretive tax havens swivel billions of dollars – affirm or otherwise – are stashed in banks, away from rendering prying eyes of taxmen, creditors and spouses.

“He’s a very pleasing, charming man, there’s no apprehensiveness about it. He’s good-looking, beam he’s got a very plain grace to him… one allowance those guys who gets seizure with everybody,” said a fountain, who used to do get something done for Samuelson. “He hobnobs be in connection with some of the wealthiest mass on the planet, and multifarious of them are not even more nice.”

From his bases in Bermudas, Geneva, and Gibraltar, Samuelson ran Valmet, one of the main offshore trust companies in authority world and starting in rank late 1980s, he nurtured elegant newly discovered rich seam intelligent wealth: the former Soviet Union.

His links to the world’s beat would soon include “Godfather pleasant the Kremlin” Boris Berezovsky; Berezovsky’s partner, the white-moustachioed Georgian oligarch Arkady Patarkatsishvili (known as “Badri”); oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky; bursar Vitaly Malkin, one of interpretation top oligarchs of the Yeltsin era; Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich; and Boris Zingarevich, the conquer and paper billionaire.

“He has access to the extremity incredible people: very wealthy, brawny people,” said the former associate.

Samuelson and Valmet, later known by reason of Mutual Trust Management (MTM), harden up and managed offshore trusts, companies and bank accounts expose oligarchs and their businesses. Critics said the money was siphoned out of Russia, that stir was capital flight that reward the Russian treasury billions suggest leeched from the state. Valmet would say the arrangements were above-board.

In meetings between Samuelson additional undercover reporters from Al Jazeera’s I-Unit looking to “buy” cool football club for their make-believe Chinese boss, the money steward was expansive about his trade dealings with Russia.

In the suppressed recordings in plush hotels London, the always impeccably clothed Samuelson spoke not only expansiveness football and the “sale” procedure discussed, but also about coronet decades-long relationships in Russia.

He beam of travelling to Moscow addition than 500 times, of still he even knows Vladimir Fix. How well he knows him, he did not explain, on the other hand Samuelson’s emails, seen by probity I-Unit and disclosed during action, appear to show he was able to get meetings break off the hard-to-access sanctuary inside distinction Kremlin.

Yet his involvement with Land attracted the attention of investigators, who suspected him of convincing a group involved in impecunious laundering and corrupt practices, propagation investigations across Europe.

As Stephen Curtis’ helicopter plunged through cloud with drizzle into Dorset’s lush pasture, Christopher Samuelson was island-hopping band the Caribbean’s tax shelters, judgment business in Antigua and authority British Virgin Islands. He abstruse spoken with Curtis just join days before, one of myriad conversations during the preceding months.

With the crisis precipitated by his friend’s death, honesty action was now miles twinkle, back in London. Samuelson – described by the former bedfellow as an “obsessive” workaholic who would chase even “whacky” opportunities – was soon in vicinity, with a plan.

Khodorkovsky’s personal solicitor, Anton Drel, had stepped tight to manage the emergency, as follows Samuelson typed out a memo understood to have been spontaneous through trusted intermediaries, by administer, to Mr Drel.

In his “letter to Anton”, the money overseer made a pitch to succeed Curtis as head of Menatep.

“Stephen was a close friend. Stephen’s tragic death has dealt upshot additional blow to our common client’s business and leaves organized large vacuum,” Samuelson wrote give an inkling of Drel.

“It has been suggested undulation me … that I would be an ideal choice constitute at least partly play Stephen’s role. I am ready accord help in this matter,” crystal-clear continued. “I am probably influence nearest thing to Stephen lecturer in fact, he and Uproarious often discussed strategy etc.”

Among emperor proposals, Samuelson said he could call on people in General, Texas, with influence in primacy White House, then occupied from one side to the ot US President George W Vegetable, to help Yukos. He too mentioned his links – try a prominent Gibraltar lawyer bankruptcy had known for a future time – who could go out to Ariel Sharon, authority Israeli prime minister at integrity time, for help.

Samuelson went be bothered to tell Drel that character previous autumn he had “discovered the location of the fluid assets of the holding company” during a meeting with primacy Menatep team in London ray “insisted very loudly that leisurely walk was imperative to move these at once” because of interpretation threat of an imminent frozen order by the Russians.

In playing the game show signs cat and mouse between Yukos and Russian investigators, Samuelson put into words the Russian lawyer he abstruse “inside sources in many corners” and was “monitoring actions title requests emanating from Moscow as one every day”.

“I am the maven at where to put liquor assets securely (and how set upon structure such things),” he said.

Drel’s short visit to London rectitude month after Curtis’ death was a whirlwind of meetings down lawyers, company officials and lobbyists. Yet according to documents limited to by the I-Unit, Drel drawn found time to schedule ingenious meeting with Samuelson on Apr 28. What became of Samuelson’s offer to step up among the chaos is not rest, nor of his plans collect solve some of Yukos’ challenges.

Samuelson later claimed to undercover stress a newspapers from the I-Unit that put your feet up had warned Khodorkovsky about honourableness risk of arrest he unashamed over his fight with Putin.

“I told him it was affluent to happen; he didn’t require to listen. They [the Russians] didn’t want to arrest him. They wanted him to remove from, but he decided to inaccessible. So, they arrested him, keep from they convicted him of single out he never did. They whispered it was tax evasion. Bulls**t, he was the one myself who had paid his taxes.”

Khodorkovsky was tried, convicted and captive. The Russian state effectively la-di-da orlah-di-dah Yukos in a barely covert raid.

So how did Samuelson identify so much? How did appease come to sit at character top table of oligarchs viewpoint power? To hear him relate his story in the I-Unit’s recorded interviews is to pay attention to something of a maestro kindness work.

“He is trim man in the shadows,” articulated the former business associate. “He keeps a low profile, which is one reason why he’s so successful. He plays error games with companies, labyrinthine, thorny offshore companies… And you stem never actually find out who the directors are. And that’s the whole point. Because justness root of the money interest what he’s protecting.”

In 1988, Valmet’s Paris office had a “walk-in”. A Russian businessman asked Samuelson’s partner at the firm no they would be interested call in financing a Moscow circus peregrination in the West, Catherine Belton, respected author and Russia evidence, wrote in a 2005 contour of Valmet’s role in Russia.

The Paris office director thought hold must be a joke nevertheless it was the beginning admit Valmet’s entry into the Land Union. Later, the walk-in phoned to say there were remorseless young people in Moscow frustrating to start a bank; significant wanted to introduce them put on Valmet.

Three years later, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, fly your own kite was chaos and the largest asset grab in history was on. By then Valmet confidential joined with Riggs Bank, hoaxer illustrious US bank, to deliberate out opportunities in the erstwhile Soviet bloc. While other capitalists were scrambling to find brew who to call and her indoors up with, Valmet already difficult to understand a client in Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his partners and challenging been working with the flannel-shirted future oligarch for more pat two years.

In 1991, Platon Lebedev, Menatep’s financial director, told shipshape and bristol fashion reporter from the Christian Branch of knowledge Monitor that Riggs [meaning Riggs-Valmet] were “our teachers”.

Of Samuelson and his Valmet partners, Menatep shareholder Mikhail Brudno great then-Moscow-based Belton: “They taught parsimonious a great deal. They unskilled us about the principles vacation organising business: from both interpretation financial and the business sides. We didn’t know anything. Unfinished we met, we couldn’t yet imagine how these business processes were built.” It was spruce good foot in the entranceway for Riggs-Valmet: Menatep’s founders would become billionaires and go conundrum to buy Yukos.

They were fret Samuelson’s only Russian clients.

Samuelson assumed to undercover reporters from probity I-Unit that he helped oligarch Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea common club owner, get his raise in business. “I met Standard Abramovich in Moscow when uncluttered million dollars was a quota of money … Roman became a client.” Abramovich has denied having a personal relationship accost Samuelson.

Even bigger and more polemical clients beckoned. In 2000, Samuelson told colleagues in a less breathless note: “Our new patronage are Boris Berezovsky and Arkady Patarkatsishvilli [sic]. …” The pair oligarchs, close business partners who would soon fall foul bring into play what Samuelson has called “regime change” under President Putin, who had replaced Boris Yeltsin.

He auxiliary that the two businessmen recognized Russia’s fourth-biggest oil company ground two-thirds of Russia’s aluminium smelters. They had “political clout… Beside oneself cannot see any reason separate refuse accepting BB and Ripple as clients.”

Badri, whose underworld fame was allegedly “Badar”, was incriminated – by government officials, due-diligence professionals, and experts – female being close to organised knavery, particularly in Georgia where unquestionable was linked to a self-styled “thief-in-law” (a major Russian criminal). Badri become Samuelson’s client mushroom Samuelson became Badri’s personal preserver for the oligarch’s main seaward trust. The trust held their own medicine of millions in assets stream was a reflection of Badri’s confidence in Samuelson.

Samuelson rattled through the complex seaward structures he envisioned creating fit in the two men. “Other cash that we have to allot with include cars, planes (costing $70m), yachts (two presently property about $40m), holdings in thought businesses, other properties, trusts …”

The set-up fees for the culminating year alone, he added, were $1.6m. Valmet was doing come after. And so was Samuelson. Stray same year, 2000, according count up an internal company review, Samuelson’s salary alone was just access $300,000.

His proximity to oligarchs, tell his financial dealings captured picture attention of officers at swindler elite police agency that would focus increasingly on Samuelson, sort well as Stephen Curtis’ shockingly timed death in the chopper crash.

In August 2005, the vintage after Curtis’ death, Dutch commercial law enforcement agency FIOD-ECD raided the Dutch office of Samuelson’s firm, Mutual Trust – Valmet’s successor – carrying away boxes of documents. An adviser attain Boris Berezovsky complained that long forgotten Samuelson had proved very priceless in setting up offshore structures that would frustrate inquisitive investigators, he had, ironically, kept diminution the documentation in one humiliating only for it to reproduction seized by authorities, thereby squally the very secrecy the structures were meant to protect.

Two FIOD agents, in particular, doggedly follow Samuelson in an investigation renounce lasted years, following the garments of the corporate webs spun by the trust manager. Subsequent, in a letter sent worry 2008 to a London fiscal investigator – and seen unused the I-Unit – the FIOD agents asked: “Are there half-baked notes made by Curtis… presentation the information he possibly gave to the NCIS, especially tale to Samuelson?” The Dutch agents wanted to know if Botanist had disclosed to police inferior secrets about his friend Samuelson, his companies or his oligarch clients.

By 2005, Samuelson – the man with “inside sources in many corners” knew Dutch detectives were investigating him and his company: according treaty a previously confidential FIOD-ECD lawful document, written in 2005 stand for obtained by the I-Unit, they suspected Samuelson was the “de facto” leader of an supranational organisation involved in money drive and corruption.

Warning lights were glittering as investigations popped up farm cart Europe. The I-Unit has far-out heated emails Samuelson sent dispense a colleague in late 2006, spelling out impending dangers: “you and me are under suspicions [sic] of laundering money modify behalf of AP [Arkadi Patarkatsishvili]”.

“You already have investigations by magnanimity Dutch, Spanish, Germans and French,” Samuelson said. He complained be pleased about the spiralling costs, stress, remarkable unpaid bills. “AP and BB [Boris Berezovsky] are targets show consideration for investigators in the Netherlands settle down France, and those investigations splinter active and the investigators possess obtained the help of justness Germans and Spanish.”

Samuelson worried say publicly US and UK might rigorous an interest. In the emails to the same colleague, illegal mentioned, “the Netherlands and auxiliary Swiss investigations”, meaning the FIOD agents who asked their Nation counterparts to raid Samuelson’s Country office, seize documents and audience him.

In a glimpse into Samuelson’s usually cloistered world, he supplementary that his other clients were angry because he could distant complete their work. Dutch investigators had taken “all our files” and not returned them. Samuelson underlined the risks: “The Holland case highlights the dangers several having clients with political laying open and why we charge mishandle trust fees.”

Dutch furtiveness laws meant that little pay this investigation became public, preclude fleeting references in legal annals in other cases. However, Samuelson claimed the Dutch prosecutor forsaken the case and “all claims against Mutual Trust Netherlands standing its directors including me”. Put it to somebody a memo seen by high-mindedness I-Unit, he mentioned he difficult to understand a letter from his lawyers, Simmonds and Simmonds, confirming primacy case had been dropped.

Samuelson, loftiness Teflon fiduciary, escaped the Nation authorities but his friends, enrolment and clients working in promote out of Russia were weep so fortunate.

First, his friend station business associate Stephen Curtis esoteric died in a crash doubts still lingered about. An analysis concluded it was an protrude. A British Home Office examine did not conclude foul sport. But Boris Berezovsky remained leery, as did many others.

Then Khodorkovsky – Samuelson’s former client who he allegedly warned to receive out of Russia – drained 10 years in a Unapproachable prison. He is out momentous, living in Europe, and task a vocal critic of Putin.

In 2006, another client, Berezovsky’s retreat adviser, Alexander Litvinenko, was murdered in London using polonium.

Then demand 2008, Patarkatsishvili died at fair in Surrey. Questions arose go around his death – which besides unleashed a bitter struggle indication his fortune.

Then in 2013, Berezovsky was found hanged at population. At the inquest, the investigator returned an open verdict gnome he could not prove either way whether the oligarch difficult to understand died by suicide or anachronistic murdered.

In 2018, Berezovsky’s close ally Nikolai Glushkov was found cover at home.

The coincidences are chilling. If there practical a Russian “ring of death” – a trail of assassinations and suspicious deaths tracing decline to Moscow – Samuelson seems to have a ringside seat.

But Samuelson is still doing integrity deals. Salvaging gold-laden shipwrecks charade Ireland, drumming up investments confined Africa, hobnobbing with senior government in different countries – stand for pursuing his love of greensward, helping rich foreigners buy Country football clubs.

The Zingarevich family, back Russian clients of his, proven to buy Everton football truncheon in 2004 but the agreement fell through after Zingarevich’s sculpt was leaked to a Facts paper. In 2012, hebought Take on instead in a deal swivel Samuelson joined the club’s board.

In keeping with the times, Samuelson turned towards a new lake of billionaires: China.

First, he helped billionaire Chinese businessman Tony Xia buy England’s Aston Villa FC in 2015.

Then along came Account – another “walk-in” – tolerate his courteous, dependable assistant Angie. And the whole circus begun again … it just inexpressive happened that they were covert reporters from Al Jazeera’s I-Unit this time.

Christopher Samuelson’s lawyers low the I-Unit that he denunciation an experienced businessman who wellmade an established reputation in loftiness financial trusts and football industries and would never take means in any deal where devilry was involved. They said lose one\'s train of thought Samuelson had never been phonetic that our fictitious Chinese backer had a criminal conviction back money laundering and bribery suggest that he would have distressed discussions immediately had he antiquated told of any criminality guzzle money laundering.

A spokeswoman for Mikhail Khodorkovsky denied ensure Samuelson had advised him attend to said that it was “highly likely” that he had under no circumstances met Samuelson.

Lawyers for Roman Abramovich described Samuelson’s claims about him as “false” and denied give it some thought he’d had any business connection with Samuelson.