Nov12: Alexander Perepilichnyy - Russian mafia whistleblower

[TonyGosling]

Alexander Perepilichnyy: Russian businessman found dead in Surrey 'was on hitlist of assassin'

The 44-year-old was about to disclose £146m tax fraud, hearing told
PAUL PEACHEY Author Biography CRIME CORRESPONDENT Thursday 06 August 2015
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/alexander-perepilichnyy-rus sian-businessman-found-dead-in-surrey-was-on-hitlist-of-assassin-10444 269.html

A millionaire Russian businessman found dead outside his Surrey home was on a hitlist discovered during a search of the home of a man described as a “specialist in assassinations”, a hearing has heard.

Alexander Perepilichnyy collapsed and died in November 2012 shortly before he was due to give “explosive” evidence as a whistleblower into an alleged $230m (£146m) fraud implicating Russian tax officials in a conspiracy with organised criminals.

The 44-year-old had been jogging alone when he was discovered outside his home on a gated estate in Weybridge, Surrey. Police had initially ruled out foul play, but a plant expert indicated three months ago that he could have been poisoned using a lethal toxin previously used by Russian and Chinese contract killers.

A pre-inquest hearing heard that the presence of a signature chemical in Mr Perepilichnyy’s stomach was “just as likely” to have an innocent explanation as to be associated with the toxic shrub, Gelsemium elegans, known as “heartbreak grass”.

A definitive answer is not expected until September after a sample of the shrub is obtained from India for testing by Professor Monique Simmonds, the expert based at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, Surrey Coroner’s Court was told.

Mr Perepilichnyy was said to be in fear of his life from Russian mafia groups and rivals after providing details about Russian officials’ fraudulent use of tax payments made by Hermitage Capital, a hedge fund run by British-based financier Bill Browder, a critic of Vladimir Putin.

Mr Perepilichnyy’s evidence that the proceeds of a fraud were put into Swiss bank accounts and Dubai real estate led to the Swiss authorities freezing millions of dollars of one of the alleged fraudsters, said Henrietta Hill QC, counsel for Hermitage.

The businessman came to Britain in 2010 and told Hermitage about a range of death threats made against him, countering police assertions that there was no intelligence suggesting that he was at risk or had links to organised Russian crime networks, the hearing was told. He took out multiple life insurance policies that came into force eight days before his death.

Ms Hill told the hearing that Mr Perepilichnyy’s name was found on a hitlist complete with a dossier of “detailed and accurate” movements of him and his family in Britain.

It followed the search of the home of the alleged hitman Valid Lurakhmaev, described as a “specialist in assassination in any place in the world”. The 45-year-old Chechen is wanted by Interpol for attempted murder and large-scale theft.

Ms Hill also cited two possible meetings in Switzerland and Heathrow Airport with a man purporting to represent the Russian interior ministry but who could actually have been a member of an organised crime gang.

“Effectively he threatened him that if he didn’t withdraw the allegations... he himself would be prosecuted,” said Ms Hill. She added: “This is a man who on his own evidence was a marked man, who took the brave step to name people behind high level fraud.”

The court also heard that he had been hit by a series of lawsuits from the company founded by Dmitry Kovtun, one of the two men suspected of involvement in the radioactive poisoning of the former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Ms Hill, who successfully argued that Hermitage should get access to key documents for the inquest, said there were concerns for the safety of other Hermitage workers from reprisal killings and “for others who tried to uncover fraud and corruption within the Russian state”.

The inquest is due to start in September.


Russian whistleblower may have been victim of 'reprisal killing', court hears
Alexander Perepilichnyy was found dead outside his home in Surrey in 2012. In May it emerged he may have ingested a deadly plant poison
Luke Harding
Thursday 6 August 2015 18.18 BST Last modified on Friday 7 August 2015 00.01 BST
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/06/russian-whistleblower-v ictim-reprisal-killing-inquest-hears

A Russian whistleblower who collapsed and died in mysterious circumstances may have been the victim of a “reprisal killing” after he exposed alleged fraud at the heart of the Russian state, a coroner’s court has heard.

Alexander Perepilichnyy was found dead outside his luxury home in Weybridge, Surrey, in November 2012 after he had been out jogging. Police initially said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death. But in May it emerged traces of a rare and deadly plant poison may have been present in his stomach when he died.

A pre-inquest hearing on Thursday heard that Prof Monique Simmonds, a plant expert at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, south-west London, was trying to obtain samples of the lethal gelsemium plant from India. Her initial findings suggested that Perepilichnyy had ingested the poison – known to have been used by Chinese and Russian assassins – shortly before he died.

But the court in Woking heard that Perepilichnyy’s widow, Nataliya, bitterly disputed this version of events and believes her husband died from natural causes. She was not in court but her lawyer, Alexandra Tampakopoulos, said: “There is no direct evidence to support the contention that Mr Perepilichnyy was murdered.”

Perepilichnyy was instrumental in exposing a massive alleged money laundering ring involving the Russian mafia and the Russian state. He provided details of an alleged $230m (£148m) fraud carried out by senior Russian tax officials. The money was allegedly stolen from taxes paid by Hermitage Capital, a hedge fund run by the US-born financier Bill Browder.

On Thursday Hermitage successfully argued that it should be an “interested party” in the case, despite opposition from Perepilichnyy’s widow and Surrey police. The coroner, Richard Travers, agreed that it should be represented ahead of a full inquest due to start on 21 September.

Hermitage’s lawyer, Henrietta Hill, said that in the months leading up to his sudden death Perepilichnyy’s name had been found on a hit list recovered from Chechen assassins in France. He had, she said, received death threats and warnings from other figures, allegedly sent by Moscow.

An investment fund manager, Perepilichnyy had managed the fortunes of some well-connected Russian officials. He fled to the UK with his family in 2010 after losing them substantial sums in the financial crash. The same officials were allegedly involved in the arrest and death in prison in 2009 of Sergei Magnitsky, a Hermitage lawyer who had uncovered the massive fraud.

In Britain, Perepilichnyy passed details of the fraud to Hermitage during a series of meetings in London. In the months before his death he took out a major life insurance policy with Legal & General, approved just eight days before he collapsed.

In court Hill claimed there were “compelling parallels” between the deaths of Magnitsky in Moscow and Perepilichnyy in Surrey. She pointed to the murders of other Russians living in exile in Britain, including Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned in 2006 and the subject of a public inquiry that ended last week.

“The presence of the potential of gelsemium in the deceased’s body is a matter of the gravest concern. We have an overwhelming concern to establish how the man died and under what circumstances,” Hill said, adding: “It’s part of a pattern of reprisal killings.”

Perepilichnyy’s widow has made no public comment on her husband’s death. However Tampakopoulos accused Hermitage on Thursday of exploiting the case and peddling “lazy stereotypes” which suggested every Russian exile who drops dead is murdered. “They are playing to the gallery to pursue their own agenda,” she complained.

Browder, Hermitage’s chief executive, has been highly critical of Surrey police. He has accused them of bungling the evidence – toxicology tests were only carried out three weeks after Perepilichnyy’s death – and of ignoring the wider Russian context. The police’s lawyer, Dijen Basu, dismissed these complaints as unfounded and unfair.

Over the next few weeks Prof Simmonds is expected to compare samples taken from the toxic plant with the “spectral fingerprint” found in Perepilichnyy’s stomach. There are several different varieties of gelsemium, the most lethal being gelsemium elegans. She will also test samples taken from urine as well as from the spleen, which was frozen and stored in a London hospital.

Days before he died Perepilichnyy made a trip to Paris, booking into one hotel but staying in another. It is not clear who he met there. The court was told that French detectives are now investigating his movements in the capital.

Perepilichnyy would not be the first apparent victim of gelsemium. In 2011 a Chinese billionaire, Long Liyuan, died after eating a dish of cat-meat stew believed to have been laced with the poison. The next pre-inquest hearing will be held on 4 September.