Raid unlawful?
London closes investigations against oligarch Fridman
September 16, 2023, 3:10 a.m
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In December, investigators are at the door of Russian oligarch Fridman in London. He can now claim partial success in the fight against the investigations against him. According to a report, all charges against him have been dropped.
Around ten months after the major raid on his London residence, the British Criminal Investigation Agency (NCA) has stopped all investigations against the sanctioned Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman. It will “take no further action against Mikhail Fridman on the basis of the arrest warrant executed at Athlone House in December 2022,” the NCA said in a statement. However, investigations against other suspects in the case continued.
According to The Times, authorities acknowledged that the raid on Fridman’s home was unlawful. The allegations against the oligarch, including money laundering, fraud and evading sanctions, were dropped. The NCA must pay damages for trespassing, cover Fridman’s legal fees and return the confiscated cash, the paper reported.
Apparently the cleaning lady couldn’t pay more
In July, the London-based oligarch received permission to challenge the December 1 search of his luxury property in the High Court. According to his legal team, the search warrant was based on false claims from a 2012 Wikileaks document that have since been debunked.
The Ukrainian-born 59-year-old businessman made his fortune after the end of the Soviet Union. Among other things, in 1991 he was one of the co-founders of Alfa Bank, one of the largest banks in Russia. Fridman’s fortune is currently estimated at over eight billion pounds (over 9.3 billion euros).
Although Fridman publicly spoke out against the war shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, this did not protect him from punitive measures by Great Britain and the EU. His accounts were frozen. He complained to Western journalists that he could no longer even afford a cleaning lady. He is currently legally defending himself against the sanctions.