According to the latest report from the British media program "Panorama," Deloitte, the world's largest accounting firm, allegedly helped forge documents to conceal Roman Abramovich's wealth and evade taxes.

According to reports, accounts signed and confirmed by Deloitte Cyprus indicated that assets worth $672 million (£508 million), including superyachts, luxury homes, and private jets, disappeared from Abramovich's company accounts. Deloitte also allegedly advised on a scheme to help Abramovich evade significant wealth taxes through forged documents.

Andrew Mitchell, a lawyer specializing in financial services law, stated that the evidence suggests the scheme was "straightforward" tax evasion, "as blatant as it gets." Abramovich's lawyers stated that he denies evading taxes or concealing his wealth.

They claim that the media provided no evidence that he was aware of, authorized, or instructed the forgery of any documents, and stated that seeking professional advice is legitimate. Deloitte Cyprus stated that its "actions complied with applicable laws."

Abramovich currently resides in Turkey, which serves as a safe haven as the country has not imposed sanctions on him. In Jersey, Channel Islands, his £5.4 billion in assets remain frozen, and a criminal investigation has been ongoing for four years.

The evidence is contained in leaked documents, including thousands of files regarding his financial situation and the operations of an offshore company network managed from Cyprus (once a favored tax haven for Russians) between 1995 and 2022.

Since 2023, British media outlets and their partners, including The Guardian, Paper Trail Media, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, the Cyprus Investigative Reporting Network, and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, have been reporting on the leaked documents.

In 2022, the same media also reported how Abramovich made his fortune through a corrupt deal in the 1990s: he acquired a Russian state-owned oil company and sold it back to the government a decade later for billions in profit. He had previously stated that allegations of corruption in this deal were false.

Abramovich's profits from Russian oil deals were channeled into a network of offshore companies. These companies were managed in Cyprus by a corporate services firm called Merit Servus, located in Limassol, Cyprus's second-largest city.

Until 2005, Deloitte owned Merit Servus. After the two companies separated, they continued working closely with Abramovich's partners to manage his global wealth, and leaked documents from Merit Servus revealed some of their practices.

The earliest discovered case of forged documents dates back to 2006, when a new Cypriot law required company accounts to be made public. This new transparency law had the potential to expose details of Abramovich's vast wealth.

Deloitte Cyprus had prepared a draft of the 2003 financial statements for his Cypriot company, Amiscan Investments, but it had not yet been finalized. This statement detailed luxury properties worth $672 million.

These included a mansion in West Sussex, a luxury apartment in London, and an estate in southern France—in addition to helicopters, private jets, and a fleet of vessels owned by the oligarch at the time, including the "Pelorus" valued at $147.5 million.

To conceal the assets, Abramovich's associates and Merit Servus devised a plan to circumvent transparency laws by transferring assets to Amiscan's parent company in the British Virgin Islands. They also backdated the asset transfer by three years, making it appear as if it occurred in 2003. Deloitte Cyprus reviewed these backdated documents and stated that they were "sufficient" to allow them to remove the assets from Amiscan's accounts.

In 2006, after Deloitte signed off on the 2003 accounts, those properties, planes, and yachts disappeared from the records, leaving only $75,000 in assets. Deloitte signed these accounts despite leaked documents showing they knew them to be completely misleading.

Lord Sikka, Professor of Accounting at the University of Sheffield, stated that tampering with transaction dates and failing to issue true and fair financial accounts constitutes a breach of legal duty and is a "scandalous act." "Panorama" also found evidence of backdated documents used for tax evasion.

The scheme involved another Cypriot company owned by Abramovich, Cravo Investments, which held nearly $2 billion in its bank account in 2003. This money generated significant interest, and according to regulations, Abramovich's company should have paid interest tax to Cypriot tax authorities.

However, his advisors devised a way to rewrite the account history. In August 2005, an email from Merit Servus to Abramovich's Russian partners stated that a solution had been devised following a meeting with Deloitte. The email read: "If you agree, the 2003 and 2004 financial statements and accounting records need to be modified accordingly."

Merit Servus informed the oligarch's Russian contact that Cravo's "2005 Provisional Tax Assessment Form" would declare that the funds had generated no income. A month later, a Russian contact replied by email: "I agree."

Merit Servus then produced a series of backdated documents, falsely claiming that Cravo merely held and managed funds on behalf of its British Virgin Islands parent company. This made it appear as if Cravo did not actually own the funds, thus avoiding tax obligations in Cyprus.

In September 2005, Deloitte wrote in an email: "Due to the backdated adjustments to Cravo's assets, several modifications must be made to the accounts (bank account balance, interest income, profit and loss statement)." This clearly indicates Deloitte's involvement in guiding the falsification of financial records.

Evidence suggests this action helped Abramovich's companies evade millions in taxes. King's Counsel Andrew Mitchell stated that this operation was straightforward tax evasion: "If this happened in the UK and involved millions of pounds, HMRC would consider criminal prosecution."

Cypriot MP Christos Christofides stated that if tax evasion did occur, "we must examine how to recover the taxes; if the relevant individuals are guilty, they must pay the price according to our laws."

In addition to the backdated documents assisted by Deloitte, Abramovich's advisors at Merit Servus also forged a third set of records. This involved the oligarch's massive commercial assets exceeding $10 billion, held by Electus Investments, a Cypriot company.

Merit Servus backdated documents to create a false impression that this Cypriot Electus did not own these enormous assets. They used another company of Abramovich's with the same name, Electus Investments, but registered in the British Virgin Islands, where greater secrecy exists and public accounts are not required.

Emails show that in 2006, Merit Servus admitted that this wealth actually belonged to Cypriot Electus, but they again proposed tampering with past records: this plan "would transfer beneficial ownership to Electus Investments in the British Virgin Islands" and create the false impression that this change had been completed three years prior.

Merit Servus signed and backdated documents, falsely claiming that the British Virgin Islands company had held these $10 billion in assets since November 20, 2003. Thus, when the accounts of the identically named Cypriot company were made public, they only showed $145,000 in assets.

Abramovich's ten billion dollars in assets thus "disappeared" on paper. King's Counsel Andrew Mitchell stated: "This exposed that professionals are willing to distort and violate industry standards and even laws, stopping at almost nothing to fabricate documents."

Vladimir Milov, who served as Russia's Deputy Energy Minister during Abramovich's rise to prominence and is now a critic of the Russian government, said: "Behind every Russian oligarch, or corrupt oligarch in the Middle East and Africa, there is an entire team of Western financial, legal, and public relations service providers. These people take money to whitewash their image and present them as ordinary individuals."

Abramovich's lawyers denied any wrongdoing by the oligarch, stating that he was not involved in the day-to-day operations of these companies; when professional advisors proposed relevant arrangements, "it was entirely reasonable and legal to accept such professional advice."

Deloitte Cyprus stated it could not comment on the allegations, as the relevant documents are more than 20 years old and can no longer be retrieved for review. Merit Servus ceased operations after the "Cyprus Confidential" leak.

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