Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, has admitted agreeing to pay billions of dollars for political favours and protection fees to get his hands on the former Soviet Union's mineral wealth.
The puzzle of how the penniless street trader rose to amass an £11.4 billion fortune is explained for the first time in his own words in court papers seen by The Times.
Mr Abramovich paid older oligarchs so that he could obtain a big share of Russia's oil and aluminium assets and to escape unscathed from the deadly post-communist carve-up. He famously emerged triumphant after the “aluminium wars”, in which more than 100 people believed to have been killed in gangland feuds over control of the lucrative smelters. He avoided the fate of a rival oligarch who annoyed the Kremlin and ended up being transported to jail in Siberia for ten years.
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