Something strange is going on. Who is killing Russian billionaires?
Another Russian oligarch has been found dead. Reports suggests that he hanged himself, fell out of a window, slashed his wrists, was poisoned, murdered his whole family.
Last year, more than a dozen Russian oligarchs died in the space of nine months. Many of the deaths are suspicious with links to the Kremlin. This is sad Oligach, an investigation into these recently dead Russian billionaires. It's created by me jake Hanrahan and my colleague Sergey Slipchenkok. Sad Oligarch is a h eleven production for Kulso Media and iHeartRadio. On September one, twenty twenty two, sixty seven year old oil baron Raval Maganov was at the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital.
A few weeks earlier, he'd suffered a heart attack. Was back at the upscale Clinical Hospital for chekhups. Maganov was on the sixth floor on his own, smoking a cigarette out the window. This is when the depression hit. He felt sad, he felt despair. At that moment, he decided he couldn't go on any longer. Raval Maganov pulled himself up onto the frame of the window.
He looked down.
It was around seventy feet to the tarmac. Almost certain death.
This was it.
Maganov jumped, His body flailed as he fell six stories. He hit the ground hard, his body mangled. Raval Maganov was discovered and taken back into the hospital by emergency staff, where he was soon pronounced dead. That's the official story. Maganov was the chairman of Luke Oil, the largest private company in Russia and the country's second largest energy company
behind Gazprom. Luke Oil quickly released a statement about Maganov's suicide, saying quote, we deeply regret to announce that Raval Maganov, chairman of Lucil Board of Directors, passed away following a severe illness. Raval Maganov immensely contributed to the development of not only the company, but of the entire Russian oil
and gas sector. Thanks to Raval Maganov's managerial talent, Luke Oil evolved from a small oil production group to one of the world's leading energy companies in next to no time.
It increased its oil and gas production manifold developed from scratch new oil and gas provinces in the Caspian and Baltic Seas, successfully launched super viscous oil projects in the Republic of Komi, introduced advanced technological solutions to support production and mature fields in West Siberia, and joined consortiums in the most promising oil regions of the world.
Ends quote.
Clearly, Maganov was a big noise in Russia. He was an oligarch who joined Luke Coyle back in nineteen ninety one when it first began to take four and now, as Luke Oyle said, he died of a severe illness, that illness being his body hitting the ground at a speed of about six meters per second. His death was officially categorized as a suicide in Russian state media. Maganov's family disagreed on They said there's no way he'd kill himself. His friend said it was very unlikely. Maganov was not
that guy, nor was he even depressed. Maybe then the official line on what happened to Maganov is inaccurate. Maybe he acts a denseally, fell out of the window, or maybe he was pushed. The Moscow Central Clinical Hospital is for rich Russian high flyers like Maganov. It's the place where Mikayle Gorbachev died, the final leader of the Soviet Union. It's known for having Russia's political and business elite amongst its patients. Top of the range equipment and healthcare, always cleanliness,
security CCTV cameras. Perhaps those would show what really happened to Maganov. Probably they would if they were working. Just so happens that the day Maganov fell to his death, the security cameras were offline due to repairs. We'll get into that, but first lou Coyle. We first mentioned this company in episode three. Alexander Sabotchin was a member of the board at Louke Coyle. He died four months before rather Maganov, after being poisoned with frog venom during a shamanic ritual. Yeah.
Really.
Lukoil, the largest private company in Russia, produces more than two percent of all the world's oil. To give you an idea of what a big deal that is, bear in mind that in twenty twenty two America alone consumed an average of twenty million barrels of petroleum every single day. To globally account for more than two percent is absolutely enormous.
Lukoil makes a lot of money. Russian oligarch Vjit Alekporov, who worked with Maganov, was the Lukoil president from nineteen ninety three until twenty twenty two, when he resigned after he was sanctioned by the West due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The twenty eight point three percent steak of Lukoil Alekproov is around the fifth richest man in Russia.
That's how much money Luke Oil makes. Rival Maganov's official net worth before he died was an estimated half a billion dollars, and his business empire is sometimes referred to as the Maganov dynasty. He began working at Luke Oil in nineteen ninety one, when the company first formed and grew in the wild aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some say that Maganov started working there in nineteen ninety three, but actually it was ninety one when
it first began. Luke Oil was founded as an oil group when merging three other existing oil companies lang past Nefgas, Urine Nefgas and kugualmin Nef Gas. Luk Luke Oyle within two years of its creation luke Co Oil was incorporated into a public joint stock company and ranked within the top three global leaders of oil production. The get go, luke Oyl was doing big busysiness. By nineteen ninety five, America's then big time independent petroleum company Arco were interested
in luke Coil. Of course, where there's oil, there's Americans. Urco became a major shareholder in Lucyl and a dedicated strategic partner. This gave Lucoyle a new level of legitimacy on the world stage when it came to intercontinental profits expansion. At the turn of the millennium, luc Oil discovered a new oil and gas area in the Caspian Sea. At this point they entered Fortunes at Global five hundred, listed as one of the most lucrative companies in the entire world.
They began doing more business with the US, entering the American retail petroleum market. From then on, Lucoyl was on the up and up. They acquired new oil refineries, expanded sales in Europe, had put in publicly toursed several of their facilities, expanded into Africa and the Middle East, got a world record for horizontal drilling capacity took part in un sponsored business events and made all the top people
involved filthy rich. Everything was going great, that is until Putin launched Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine on February twenty fourth, twenty twenty two. Russian troops across the borders, Russian fighter jets bombed the cities, and Russian media blamed it all on Ukraine. Outside of those bubbles, though the writing was on the wall, it was clear whatever issues were going on between each country and their various alliances
became irrelevant. Russia launched an imperialist assault on a sovereign country in Europe. Putin himself even confirmed this, stating publicly on Russian TV that he doesn't recognize the existence of Ukraine and he dismissed its long history. He wants to take over make Ukraine Russian, and that's that. Whilst many Western countries, mainly America, are of course guilty of doing the exact same thing all across the world, Russia doesn't get a pass, not in the world stage where it
actually matters anyway. Plenty of over zealous political types might tell you it wasn't really their fault, but let's be honest. In the real world, everyone can see what's happening. This is something Luke Quil's board of members clearly understood very early on. As we mentioned in episode three, the high rollers at Luke Coyle Maganov, especially as chairman, took the
risk to speak out publicly against Putin. If you remember, they released an official Luke Oyl's statement shortly after the invasion, saying, quote, the Board of Directors of Lukeoyl expresses its deepest concerns about the tragic events in Ukraine, calling for the soonest termination of the armed conflict. We express our sincere empathy for all victims who are affected by this tragedy. We strongly support a lasting ceasefire and a settlement of problems
through serious negotiations and diplomacy. In its activities, Luke Oyl aspires to contribute to peace, international relations and humanitarian ties.
Ends quote.
In any properly free society, public criticism of a war is of course accepted without punishment, but in Russia, with increasing state authoritarianism, speaking out can get you in bit trouble. To give some context to how seriously the state takes opposition to its invasion of Ukraine, consider this you could get up to fifteen years in prison in Russia for taking part in organized public protests against the war. That's
not for rioting, looting, or violence. That's just for organizing a peaceful protest in favor of removing Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. In fact, on April twenty first, over one than three hundred citizens were arrested in Russia for gathering in the streets to demonstrate their opposition to the war. Many were even beaten. So for a heavyweight company like Lukoyle to speak out against the invasion was likely seen as some kind of challenge to his power in the
eyes of Putin. As is well documented, his way of ruling Russia is to bulldoze any anyone who comes up against him. Some theorize that's what happened to Raval Maganov. Maganov was directly familiar with Putin. He'd been given a national award by him personally in twenty nineteen for outstanding service to Russia. Under Maganov's guidance, Luke Oil had made the Kremlin consistently huge amounts of money in tax and had made Russia an all star global player in the
world's oil and gas industries. He advised the Russian Energy Ministry before OPEC meetings and was generally at the top of his game for at least thirty years. Maganov was not an easy guy to replace, So that begs the question. Did the louk Oyl statement against Russia's war on Ukraine anger Putin enough to get Maganov killed? To me, that sounds a little excessive. But to get a better idea of how oligar key can affec your health, I spoke to a man who claims to be in these exact crossheads.
Well, my conflict was with the oligarchs that are close to Putting, have been has been developing over quite some time. Now they to assassinate.
Me, that's I got Sychev speaking through an interpreter. Saichev is a multi millionaire businessman from Russia. He doesn't like Putin. I got Sychev claims that people associated with Russia's oligarchy have tried to kill him several times. He says that this is because of a court battle he's involved in against a Putin ally who didn't pay him the full stake of shares he owned in Russian chemical company foss Agro. It's a bit complicated. The case itself is kind of
irrelevant to us. But basically, Saychev says he's been targeted for assassination, are the same sorts of groups who would in theory target someone like raval Aagonov.
Quite recently, I put an information that they actually ordered my assassination. I started receiving emails from a known person where he says that they ordered this assassination because of the court case that is being processed. Two days ago, I was in the United Kingdom and provided this information to the local police and they started a criminal investigation related to that.
Right, So who is after you exactly?
Do you think?
Well, I would say that it's the putting who is after me, but his close friends instead. In terms of Putting, he might be aware of me because in twenty eighteen, when I left Russia, I was supporting Navayli and I was one of the major sponsors who mentioned this information publicly.
Alexi Novealni is an opposition leader in Russia. Novalni is currently in prison in Russia, accused of violating his parole for a previous charge of embezzlement, which is believed to be politically motivated. His imprisonment came after he was poisoned with neuvechok in twenty twenty and hospitalized in Germany. Anyway, back to Saichev, obviously you have first hand experience in this world. Just from your point of view, can you give us an idea of how powerful the Oligachs are in Russia?
Right now?
They have quite weak influence overputting the more his hostages, so to say, because they made their fortune by working and being close to him. Now when most of them are under sanctions, they have no other choice than to support him demonstratively.
So in some of these cases that we've been looking at, in most of them, to be honest, they regarding either Russian Oligachs or very rich Russian businessmen with significant influence in various industries, often connected to the Kremlin, either directly or otherwise. To be honest, it's very fishy the death, to say the least, and it definitely opens up the possibility to think, well, maybe these people are being murdered.
Do you think that, say someone on a you know, a very high level oligarch type, what do you think to that is that possibility? Is that something that can happen just you know from your own personal point of view.
Yes, I am aware of those deaths, and I don't think they have been accidents. And from what I know, which is like publicly available information, from my conversation with some of my accordancies, which is the inside information, I think they've been killed because they had financial information related to Putting, especially it related to those people who are who grew connected with the state related companies like Gaspromo notex.
Do you do you think there's any possibility that this could be linked to the war in Ukraine. I mean, it's it's mostly happened in this if well, these people have died in a very short amount of time, and in that short amount of time it kind of started ticking up like an optic in these mysterious deaths of these rich Russian tycoons when the Ukraine War started. So I don't know. Do you think that there's any It's possible there's a connection to the wa there.
I suppose it may be connected to war because Putting at the moment is under a very close monitor from the public worldwide, and he attempts to hide his financial schemes. It was very well known before the war that he had a widespread offshore accounts that he used to finance his own and his family's personal goals. Well, I can give you an example of which is based on my own story with my polygarchs, what financial relationships they has
that connects them to the current Russian government. Well, one of the examples would be related to for Sacro and its shareholders. Among their members, that is the one person named Litvinenka, who is Puting's friends friend, and he owns twenty percent shares of for Sagro, which is around three billion dollars and has been proven by journalists investigations that this was a priv to Putting when he received that amount of shares.
So what side Chev is saying here is that the company he was involved with, which is why allegedly these oligarchs are trying to get him killed. He's saying that someone associated with that company's someone that has shares in it, received three billion dollars. But actually that wasn't really for him. That was a bribe, that was something to give over to Putin, And perhaps this is how Putin makes his money.
As we've spoken about already in this series, Putin is believed to be worth billions and that's definitely not from the money he makes as the President of Russia, not officially anyway. I asked Sichev how these oligarchs might assemble teams to go out and actually kill people if it's not directly from the Kremlin itself.
Well, the expression is pretty simple. They have a number of executors who specialize in certain ways of staging those assassinations and taking for example, the poisoning of Navali or where special agencies tried to poison him. They used pretty rude or crude methods, and they've made a lot of mistakes that allowed to easily identify them pretty civil explanations because this whole system is degrading and they're no longer competent to what they do.
Do you think it's possible that maybe some of these people are being killed and that it's some kind of message to be sent out, Because there's a lot of people that have died in a short space of time that are all in similar kind of circuits, similar communities. Maybe there's a message being sent here.
I don't know.
Yeah, I think it's a pretty plausible reason that they wanted to send a message. I think I will agree with you so I go A.
Saichev, a Russian tycoon involved with the company that's allegedly linked to Kremlin oligarchy, thinks it's quite possible that these mysterious deaths are murders. Maybe, or maybe it's all a coincidence sculpted into a theory by the idea of the Russian boog This is definitely something that we have to take into account when looking at these strange deaths. We
don't know I for certain what's going on. What I do know, though, is that it's almost too perfect that the security cameras were off the day Raval Maganov fell to his death. The official line is that the cameras were down to be repaired. Now. To be fair, CCTV can be temperamental. However, the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital is health care for the elites. It's unlikely they have low
quality security equipment. Either way, things can still break. Perhaps Maganov was depressed and just happened to commit suicide at the hospital, of all places, on the same day the cameras were down. Russian media said had been taken antidepressants after all, although Maganov's family refute this, saying that no, that is not true. He wasn't taken a depressants. As you can see, there are many inconsistencies and coincidences surrounding
his death. Oh yeah, and there's another interesting tourn of information that we haven't mentioned yet. Get this, There was a special visitor at the hospital the very same day that Maganov fell to his death. Pooting, the President of Russia, was at the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital on September one, twenty twenty two. The same day arrival, Maganov hit the tarmac from seventy feet.
Surgery explains.
This is around the time when Korbachev died, so the last USSR leader before it is old and basically he was visiting his open casket on September first, he like already passed away, and this was like, I guess the co media visit just to show that he's like paying respect or whatever. He was known to not like him because he kind of blamed them for the fall of the Soviet Union, so I guess him visiting was kind
of a big deal. He said he won't visit the actual memorial service, so he just kind of visited the hospital. But this is the same moscue of Central Hospital where macgana was staying and that was the same day that mcganna died, right for all, out of window.
Typical.
But it's just interesting that same day that Putin visits, just news that Maganav dies.
Yeah, and I mean, okay, yeah, Grubachev died I think August thirtieth. Two days later Putin went to see his casket or I guess, like maybe you can afford for two days. But it seemed like a crazy coincidence to me that the guy that Maganov's company basically spoke out against four months prior just happens to be that the same day he jumps out the window.
Yeah, I mean like it just sounds like a movie, you know, to say, like the truth is more unbelievable than like a story, and who would have thought, right, It's like putting his visits and then this guy falls out of the window. It's almost like a mafia mob movie where the dawn visits. I think you can see it play out, you know, you can see it play out again to the point where it's almost absurd.
But then it's like maybe it is the truth.
You know, I was reading a bit into it, and like, you know, he was in charge of the coil, and apparently Rosnieft was looking to acquire Locoil because it's again it's like very deep connections to the States, but not exactly owned by the state.
And it looks like thecoil was going to be absorb by Rose.
And then it for one under sender never worked out and some like this is all rumors, right, so I can't really say for sure, but apparently Locoil was kind of discussing merging with them, but apparently like the management of the coil was kind of opposed to it. What was NIFT is again state connected energy company, massive, massive corporations working in the energy industry, you know, basically the backbone of Russia's economy.
There's so many of them.
Even Magando's brother was on another LNG company working with another one.
He was like the general director.
It's all really like intermain Culture's a bunch of companies, billions of dollars and it's basically just like shares of the market, right, They're all kind of doing the same thing.
They just have maybe various.
Fields or areas where they operate out of, but they're basically doing the same thing. And the Russian government is trying to control of them essentially, like there's no reason for them to have private companies. They just want to be the ones running them.
Right, Well, yeah, I mean, okay, Lucayle originally released the statement at the start of the war, presumably I don't think they cared about Ukraine and they were like, oh, well, this is going to affect our money. Oh and if you look at the history of lu Coal, they have tons and tons of cooperation with you know, Western companies, with America specifically, so it would make sense that they would try and insulate themselves a little bit from what
the state was doing. But then when you look at the records, the sales records, Luke Coal actually made like record profits after the invasion. Okay, at the start it looked rocky, but then actually it worked out that they ended up making a lot of money. The war was actually kind of grows but the war was good for them financially, so they kind of, you know, they maybe
mispredicted what would happen there. And it looks like Coil is actually making a lot of money via countries that are speaking out against Russia saying they're going to sanction them.
But actually Louke Coil is operating refineries in these countries, are making a lot of money there, and I am thinking, well, it would make sense then that the Russian government, perhaps to kind of weave that way around the sanctions, would want would then want to acquire Luke Cole because, like I said, Louke Coil is actually still making a hell of a lot of money in amongst all of this.
Yeah, like they were created and they operate out of Russia, but they have facilities around. I know they have one in Italy for sure. I know they're like kind of spread throughout Western throughout the West and Western Europe. Yeah, for sure. You know, like they made the statement and now you have this as the West you can be like, oh, but look.
They're they're against it. You know.
I think it's obviously like a face saving kind of statement, but I could see how it kind of a fan put in or kind of go against the state message and stuff, kind of like you're making us look bad, you know, Whereas they're doing this to save their business basically because maybe compared to other companies, they have much more stake in the West and you know, potentially losing their facilities refineries could really hamper the business the worst started.
They probably lost some money through the like the first month or so of like companies not knowing what to do the West not knowing what to do, like where the sanctions were just coming in.
But then the you.
Know, need for gas oil energy continued anyways, and I'm guessing business once as usual. You know, prices were all over the place, so it's probably selling it a good price. And yeah, you know, having that foot in the West and being able to sell through that.
I'm sure being able to.
Buy things through the company would be a great thing for POUSI.
Yeah, or one last things, do we know do we know if Putium was at the hospital the same time the Maganov died.
So it's basically it's more like date wise. I can't say by the hour I believe mcgana died. I believe they found him in like the afternoon, and Putin was there like during the day, so it's possible. Yeah, Like from what I understand, Mcgana died closer to like nighttime. Putting visited during the day, so like Magana would have been alive when Putting visited, cameras were off, so we don't know if maybe he was visited.
We don't know how he fell.
It's weird as well to me that, Okay, the cameras were off od anyway when this happens. But it's odd to me that security cameras would not be working on the day the president visits. You would think they would want everything running. You would think that the security around Putin would be like, right, we need to make sure that those cameras are on, you know, just in case something happens, I e. All of the checks that these kind of people make, make sure there's no assassination attempts,
that kind of thing. It seems weird enough that they weren't on, but then also weird to me that they would be not working on the day Putin visits. I mean, stranger things happen, but I don't know, it just seems so perfect.
I think the official line is under repairs, So I mean, you can, you know, always be under repairs if you need to be. I'm sure it's not difficult to make up a reason and just you know, be like, oh, we're we have to fix this thing. Let's turn off the cameras for a day, and yeah, you're right, Like if the big boss is visiting, you probably you know, if you're actually repairing stuff, you probably don't want it
to look bad. Be like, oh, yeah, the you know, the security system is down and we have no we're completely blind.
Like, I'm sure it would look bad. I wouldn't want to be the guy like, hey, by the.
Way, Putin's you don't know security detail, just say, you know, all the cameras are effected, right, But on the other hand, I kind of can't see the incompetence and just be like, you know what, these cameras are here just for looks. They that were worked to beget with Let's say they were under repairs, you know what I mean. So it's like there's a lot of possibilities. I mean, look at astin.
Yeah, funny that, yeah, yeah, I don't think it's a stretch, you know, like to go there.
Again, we don't have any evidence to back it up, but I think anybody can speculate and kind of wonder just how much of a coincidence these things are.
So again, Raval Maganov falls to his death at the hospital the same day Putin visits to apparently pay his respects to a dead Gorbachev. Maganov is the chairman of a Russian mega corporation that publicly criticized Putin's career defining invasion of Ukraine. Keep that in mind when listening to something I go Saychev said that I think is relevant to this death. Now heads up, I didn't mention Maganov to Sychev at all when.
They're talking about gars. It would separate them into two distinct groups. First, from one is a close circle, so to say, and they have some limited influence over Putting because they are not only connected with him financially, but they also have some friendship and the out circle or all the other regards, they might be equally rich, but
they have no personal connections with Footing. They use the influence when there are state related decisions are to be made, but they use this influence to pursue their own goals.
It's obvious to me at least that Raval Maganov and the rest of the Looke Oil board members probably didn't care much about the invasion of Ukraine outside of how it could damage their profit margins. Of the rule that accepted awards from Putin himself, and they pretty much gone along with everything else he's done to the country. So the statement they made could be seen as business leaders trying to use their influence to save face amongst their
Western business partners. Now, if Putin is as vindictive and callous as evidence suggests he is, maybe the death of Maganov was actually a killing that was made personal. Obviously, Putin didn't push him out that window himself, but perhaps there was something symbolic about him being at the same place on the same day that Maganov went out the
window and fell to his death. Maybe this was revenge, or maybe Maganov was depressed and chose his hospital visit to commit suicide on a day that the security cameras just happened to be off, and the same day the president he'd pissed off also happened to visit.
Who knows?
Sad Oligarch is a H eleven production for Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio, hosted, produced, researched, and edited by me Jake Hanrahan and Sergei Slipchenkok co produced by Sophie Lichtman. Music by Sam Black, artwork by Adam mcdoyle, soundmix by Splicing Block. Go to Jakeanrahan dot com for more information.