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 questioning, and Britain granted him asylum in 2003. Russia convicted him in absentia in 2007 for fraud and embezzlement, and repeatedly sought his extradition. By the time he lost his 2012 High Court case against Roman Abramovich - seeking over £3 billion in Sibneft damages, which the judge rejected outright - Berezovsky was broke, depressed, stripped of assets by legal defeats and a costly divorce. He was found dead at his Berkshire home on 23 March 2013; a post-mortem indicated hanging with no signs of struggle, and the coroner returned an open verdict.