A joint investigation by BBC Panorama and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has alleged that Deloitte’s Cyprus arm helped falsify documents that hid part of Roman Abramovich’s fortune and spared him a large tax bill. According to the investigation, assets worth £508m, including mansions, private jets and superyachts, disappeared from the former Chelsea owner’s company accounts after Deloitte signed them off.
The claims rest on a leak of thousands of documents covering Abramovich’s finances and a network of offshore companies run from Cyprus between 1995 and 2022. Profits from his 1990s purchase of a Russian state oil company, which he later sold back to the government, flowed into companies administered by MeritServus, a corporate services firm that Deloitte owned until 2005. In 2003 Deloitte Cyprus drew up accounts, never finalised, for a company called Amiscan Investments that listed $672m of luxury assets, among them a West Sussex mansion, a London flat, an estate in the south of France and the $147.5m yacht Pelorus.
Panorama alleges that after a 2006 Cypriot law required company accounts to be published, Deloitte Cyprus advised on moving those assets to a parent company in the British Virgin Islands, with the transfer backdated three years. Only $75,000 remained on Amiscan’s books after the 2006 sign-off. A separate set of backdated records allegedly concerned a fortune of more than $10bn held by Electus Investments. Barrister Andrew Mitchell KC told the BBC the scheme amounted to tax evasion, adding: “it couldn’t be more blatant”. Cypriot MP Christos Christofides said that if tax had been evaded, the country would look at how to recover the money.
Abramovich’s lawyers deny that he evaded tax or concealed his wealth. They said Panorama had no evidence that he knew about, authorised or directed any falsification, that he was not involved in the day-to-day running of the companies, and that relying on professional advice was entirely legitimate. Deloitte Cyprus said it acts in compliance with applicable laws and could not comment on specific allegations because the documents were more than 20 years old and no longer accessible.
The allegations add to Abramovich’s legal pressures. He is believed to have lived in Turkey since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Jersey has frozen £5.4bn of his assets in a criminal investigation that remains open four years on. His lawyers told Panorama that the Jersey case was “undertaken for political purposes” and denied the allegations.
