Documents falsified to evade tax on Abramovich's wealth, BBC finds

Roman Abramovich’s wealth was concealed through falsified documents prepared by Deloitte’s Cyprus office, which allowed assets worth $672 million—including super‑yachts, mansions, private jets and a fleet of boats such as the $147.5 million Pelorus—to disappear from the accounts of his Cypriot company Amiscan Investments. The scheme involved backdating paperwork in 2006 to make it appear that the assets had been transferred three years earlier, in 2003, to Amiscan’s parent company in the British Virgin Islands, thereby evading a new Cyprus transparency law that would have required public disclosure. Deloitte reviewed the altered documents as “adequate” and signed off the accounts, effectively facilitating a tax‑evasion plan that prosecutors say was “straightforward” and “blatant,” according to financial‑services barrister Andrew Mitchell KC.

The falsification was part of a broader network of offshore structures administered from Cyprus between 1995 and 2022, revealed by a leak of thousands of documents examined by BBC Panorama and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The leak shows that after Deloitte sold its corporate‑services arm MeritServus in 2005, the two firms continued to collaborate closely with Abramovich’s associates, managing a complex web of offshore companies that funneled profits from a controversial 1990s oil deal into hidden assets. The investigation also notes that Abramovich, once a high‑profile Russian oligarch in the UK and owner of Chelsea Football Club, has been under UK sanctions since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with £5.4 billion of his assets frozen in Jersey and a four‑year criminal probe ongoing.

Abramovich’s legal team denies any knowledge or authorization of the document falsification, claiming the advice of professionals was legitimate and that the Jersey investigation is politically motivated. Deloitte Cyprus maintains that it operates in compliance with applicable laws, while the findings raise serious questions about the ethical standards of major accounting firms that assist high‑net‑worth clients in evading tax. The revelations add to ongoing scrutiny of offshore financial practices, linking the case to wider investigations such as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Cyprus Confidential project, and may prompt further regulatory and legal actions against both the oligarch’s network and the professional advisers involved.

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