MARK HOLLINGSWORTH AND STEWART LANSLEY
LONDON GRAD
FROM RUSSIA WITH CASH
THE INSIDE STORY OF THE OLIGARCHS
‘There are no barriers to a rich man’
- Russian proverb
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 The Man Who Knew Too Much
CHAPTER 2 The Russian Billionaires’ Club
CHAPTER 5 The Russians Have Landed
CHAPTER 7 The Big Game Hunters
Also by Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley
Roman Abramovich and Daria Zhukova © Big Pictures
Chelsea win the Premier League © Reuters
Mikhail Khodorkovsky © Camera Press
Vladimir Putin and Oleg Deripaska © PA
Boris Yeltsin and Boris Berezovsky © PA
Boris Berezovsky in Surrey © Camera Press
Alexander Lebedev, Mikhail Gorbachev and Bono © Getty Images
Evgeny Lebedev, Mikhail Gorbachev and Geordie Greig © Getty Images
Naomi Campbell and Vladimir Doronin © Big Pictures
Pelorus in St Petersburg © PA
Helicopter in Sardinia © Big Pictures
Roman Abramovich’s Boeing 767 © Rex Features
Natalia Vodianova and Justin Portman © PA
Damien Hirst and Daria Zhukova © Getty Images
Christian Candy and Nick Candy © Getty Images
Prince Michael of Kent © Camera Press
Lord Bell © Camera Press
Nat Rothschild © Getty Images
George Osborne © PA
Queen K © Getty Images
Lord Mandelson © Camera Press
Stephen Curtis © PA
Pennsylvania Castle © Rex Features
Helicopter crash site © Rex Features
Alexander Litvinenko’s FSB credentials © Litvinenko/PA
Alexander Litvinenko © PA
Alexander Litvinenko in hospital © Getty Images
Anna Politkovskaya © PA
Paul Klebnikov © PA
Andrei Lugovoi © Corbis
Badri Patarkatsishvili and Boris Berezovsky © PA
Fyning Hill estate © Getty Images
Oleg Deripaska’s London home © Rex Features
Russian women in London © Aleksei Kudikov/Eventica
Russian gathering in Trafalgar Square © Aleksei Kudikov/Eventica
Ksenia Sobchak © Landov
Polina Deripaska, Tatyana Dyachenko, Valentin Yumashev © Landov
Dmitri Medvedev © Nikas Safronov
Vladimir Putin © Nikas Safronov
Chocolate heads © Getty
CHAPTER 1 The Man Who Knew Too Much
‘I have dug myself into a hole and I am in too deep. I am not sure that I can dig myself out’
- STEPHEN CURTIS, January 2004
6.56 P.M., WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH 2004. A brand-new white six-seater £.5-million Agusta A109E helicopter lands under an overcast sky at Battersea heliport in south-west London. Waiting impatiently on the tarmac and clutching his two unregistered mobile phones is a broad-shouldered 45-year-old British lawyer named Stephen Curtis. He is not in the best of moods. Three minutes earlier he had called Nigel Brown, Managing Director of ISC Global Ltd, which provided security for him, regarding disputed invoices sent to a Russian client. ‘This is causing problems!’ he shouted and then paused. ‘Look, I have to go now. The helicopter is here.’
Curtis climbs aboard the helicopter and manoeuvres his bulky frame into the passenger cabin’s left rear seat. A member of the ground staff