Boris Berezovsky

Boris Berezovsky was a Russian Academy of Sciences member and engineer who amassed an estimated $3 billion by 1997, chiefly through acquiring Channel One and other state assets during the early '90s privatisation scramble. He bankrolled Unity to secure Vladimir Putin's election, expecting the oligarchs' influence to hold, and entered the Duma in 1999 as a Putin loyalist. But after the 2000 presidential election, Putin consolidated power and demanded total fealty; Berezovsky went into opposition, resigned, and became a vocal critic. In late 2000 he fled Russia as prosecutors summoned him for qu…