Chelsea boss 'broke tax laws'

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Following the recent arrest and detention of Russian oil baron Mikhail Khodorkhovsky, it looks like his pal Abramovich is next for that dawn raid visit:

From:The Guardian

Russian officials yesterday accused the oil giant controlled by Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich of "wrongdoings" in its tax affairs, increasing state pressure on the billionaire's Russian business assets. The audit chamber, the accounting watchdog of the Russian parliament, said it had conducted an inquiry of Sibneft, which recently merged with the beleaguered oil firm, Yukos, and handed the results of its investigations to law enforcement officials. "The fact that we sent the results of the probe to the tax ministry, the state customs committee and... to the federal tax police service, indicated that we discovered wrongdoing," said spokesman Vyacheslav Smirnov. The chamber declined to provide further details. The move is the first open attempt by Russian officials to try to instigate a prosecution of the Chelsea owner's oil company. Many believe Mr Abramovich may be next on a Kremlin hit list of the big businessmen who made billions through dubious privatisations in the mid-1990s.

Russia's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, became the first victim of the crackdown when he was arrested last month. Critics say the prosecutions are politically motivated and designed to restore control of Russia's massive resources to the Kremlin, where former KGB officers are gaining the upper hand. Yet polls show the Russian public overwhelmingly approves of the prosecution of the "oligarchs". The company denied any wrongdoing. "The audit chamber conducted a full investigation last year and they themselves clearly stated that Sibneft had not broken any laws", said John Mann, a spokesman for Sibneft.

The move came as Russian media reported that President Vladimir Putin wanted parliament to pass in its next session legislation to ban the use of tax loopholes and off-shore accounting schemes. MPs were told that in the first six months of this year alone, 29 billion rubles (£600m) of revenue was lost to off-shore schemes.

A day earlier President Putin's right hand man, Sergei Ivanov, suggested that Russia should keep tighter control on its oil resources. Mr Ivanov, a former employee of Mr Putin during their KGB days, is being touted as his possible successor.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1088143,00.html