Russian law enforcement agencies continue the search for the heritage of Russian self-exiled business tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who died in London, Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reported.
After his death many media outlets have made public stories of Berezovsky's acquaintances that his went completely bankrupt. In particular, Berezovsky owed five million pounds to his last wife Yelena Gorbunova and left a debt of 56 million dollars unsettled to his rival Abramovich, who defeated him at the London High Court.
The detectives of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, the Russian Investigative Committee and the Federal Security Service have found several ‘caches’, where Berezovsky had hidden his riches.
Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev noted that the Serbian authorities arrested the assets at seven local enterprises, which Berezovsky possessed. These companies mainly produced food products and beverages. The cost of the assets is more than nine billion roubles (about 271.25 million dollars).
The Basmanny Court in Moscow has passed the verdict in a criminal case against Berezovsky. Komsomolskaya Pravda daily received the copies of the materials in the so-called Borjomi criminal case (Borjomi is the mineral water produced in Georgia).
“The criminal files proved that in 2002-2005 Boris Berezovsky together with his Georgian friend and business partner Badri Patarkatsishvili has passed 320 million dollars to a certain company through several offshore companies,” the newspaper reported. “The company invested some part of these monetary funds in the assets producing and bottling the mineral water in Russia, Ukraine and Georgia. After that through other companies Berezovsky became the actual owner of assets in several Russian companies: IDS Borjomi (Moscow), Aqua Logistika (Moscow Region), Mineralnye Vody Borjomi (Moscow) and Edelweiss L (Lipetsk).
The Basmanny Court in Moscow ruled to arrest all the property of these companies. The next stage is the transfer of the arrested assets in the Russian budget from Berezovsky’s material damages to the Russian state.
The court in the Ukrainian city of Lvov has recently arrested the Ukrainian assets of IDS Borjomi, which Berezovsky owned. In particular, the shares of the Morshinsky plant of mineral waters Oscar, the Mirgorod plant of mineral waters and others were arrested, Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reported.
All this is just the beginning of unravelling a global tangle that is named Berezovsky’s empire. So, at the request of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office Berezovsky’s mansion Chateau Clocher de la Garoupe, different property on the Cote d’Azur in France, which Berezovsky owned, at the cost of 74 million euro, two yachts of the business tycoon: a 50-metre-long Thunder B and a 15-metre-long Lightning at the approximate cost of about 20 million dollars were arrested.