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Deloitte, the world’s largest accountancy firm, has been accused of falsifying documents to conceal Roman Abramovich’s wealth and facilitate tax evasion.
Company accounts approved by Deloitte’s Cyprus office allegedly allowed assets valued at $672million (£508m) – encompassing superyachts, luxury properties and private aircraft – to disappear from the books of the Russian oligarch’s corporate entities.
The investigation, conducted with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, further found the firm appears to have provided guidance on a scheme to dodge a substantial tax liability through the fabrication of documents.
The revelations stem from a trove of thousands of leaked files detailing the oligarch’s financial affairs and a web of offshore companies operated out of Cyprus between 1995 and 2022.
Lawyers acting for Abramovich told the BBC he denies evading tax or hiding his wealth.
They maintained their investigation offered no proof he was aware of, approved or orchestrated the falsification of any document, adding relying on professional advisers was entirely legitimate.
Deloitte Cyprus responded by stating it “acts in compliance with applicable laws”.
Andrew Mitchell KC, a barrister specialising in financial services law, claimed the scheme demonstrated “straightforward” tax evasion, adding: “It couldn’t be more blatant.”
Abramovich’s legal representatives also rejected the allegations at the centre of the Jersey investigation, claiming it was “undertaken for political purposes”.
For almost 20 years, Abramovich was Britain’s most prominent Russian oligarch, having purchased Chelsea Football Club in 2003 and funded the most successful era in the club’s history.
That status unravelled following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when the UK Government sanctioned him as an associate of President Vladimir Putin, compelling him to relinquish the club.
He has reportedly been residing in Turkey, which has not imposed sanctions against him.
Meanwhile, in Jersey, assets belonging to the oligarch worth £5.4bn remain frozen, with a criminal investigation now in its fourth year.
The BBC previously reported in 2022 Abramovich amassed his fortune through an acquisition of a Russian state oil company in the 1990s, later selling it back to the Government for billions.
Abramovich denied those allegations.
The documents from 2023 originated from MeritServus, a corporate services firm based in Limassol, Cyprus’s second city, which administered a network of offshore entities through which profits from Abramovich’s Russian oil dealings were channelled.
Deloitte, now the largest of the so-called “big four” accounting firms, owned MeritServus until 2005.
Even after the two organisations separated, they continued to collaborate closely with Abramovich’s associates to oversee his global wealth.
GB News has contacted Deloitte for comment.
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