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Berezovsky is cast out into exile by his one time protégé, Vladimir Putin; Berezovsky flees to the UK where he befriends Scot Young and the duo hatch a plan to extract Boris' billions from Russia.
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00:00The world in which Scott Young and Boris Berezovsky operated was kind of like going down this rabbit
00:14hole. It's a world that exists under the surface with global business deals and yachts and mansions
00:26and celebrity clubs and shady criminal figures. This isn't a world that exists entirely separately
00:39from our world. And when it crosses over, it can be potentially lethal.
00:47A murder investigation being launched into the death of another Russian on British soil.
00:57He told his uncle a fortnight before he died. If anything happens to me in the next two weeks,
01:15it won't be an accident.
01:33London is levitating on a sea of dirty money.
01:35If you deal with somebody who has a very suspicious track record, someday it will come back to haunt you.
01:47ia
01:50What was your impression of Boris Berezovsky when you first met him?
02:08met him? Very mercurial, I will say. He was never still. He was always on the move, fast
02:22speaking, fast in understanding, very intelligent. When I met Boris, it was in 1972, and then
02:35I started to work for him. We spent a lot of time together. He had some kind of energy or
02:44some power or that feeling that he knows what he wants. But at that time, we had no idea
02:55of what could happen. I was at Boris Berezovsky's birthday party in 2006. It was in Blenheim
03:11Palace. With a lot of music, with a lot of black caviar. It was beautiful. Small party,
03:26Russian style. You know, the interesting thing about Russians in London is they don't like
03:38to be seen together. But for this party, it was different.
03:45As part of our investigation, we obtained some home video footage of the party, and it's just
03:52quite extraordinary to watch all of these characters mingling in, you know, incredible glamour
03:57and luxury. There was Berezovsky, Badri Patakatsishvili, Berezovsky's closest associate and business partner.
04:08There was Andre Lugovoy. He'd recently got out of prison, and he'd managed to ingratiate
04:12himself with Berezovsky. There was Alexander Litvinenko, the KGB defector who fled to the UK
04:18with Boris Berezovsky's help. The guest list really was a who's who of both kind of Russia's
04:24most wanted men, but also the glitziest and most glamorous tier of Russian society, which
04:29was now exiled to the UK. They were really all there under one roof, circulating together,
04:36enjoying themselves on the dance floor, sipping brandy, puffing on cigars. And then we noticed,
04:42but that also present was Scott Young. We knew that there was this connection between Scott
04:52and Boris. But this video footage of the party showed that Scott Young was connected to a number
05:00of politically exposed Russians who'd fled to the UK, and that really seemed like there was a very
05:05strong Russian connection to Scott Young. That rang real alarm bells for us. How could that be a
05:11explained?
05:41In the 90s in Russia, there was lots of corruption and links with organized crime. It was a very unsettled time.
06:03The barricades aren't coming down yet. They say they'll remain in place until the ideal of democracy in Russia
06:09is fully out of danger. Martin Sixmyth, BBC News, Moscow.
06:14I was the BBC's Moscow correspondent starting in 1988. At the time, Russia was a very dodgy, criminal place.
06:24The big step forward was 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. At the time, Russia was led by Boris Yeltsin.
06:34His agenda was shaped by the attitude he'd adopted towards the communist system.
06:41Overnight, he did away with the old Soviet system and introduced the basic tenets of capitalism.
06:48As Russia moved into its new capitalist economy, Boris Yeltsin sold off all of the assets which had been state-owned,
06:57including the country's oil and mineral concerns, all of its media businesses.
07:01Cronies of Boris Yeltsin were able to come along and buy up gigantic companies for rock-bottom prices
07:08and became billionaires overnight.
07:15You get what was called cowboy capitalism in Russia.
07:18And we started to see the oligarchs rise to prominence.
07:23What is oligarch?
07:25It's a very rich man who uses his riches for political influence.
07:31I know some of them personally. I grew up with them. Some of them have been to prison.
07:37They were in the right place at the right time. They've taken over state assets, basically paying them nothing.
07:46Before you know it, you've got someone who's gone from a regular citizen in a communist state to a global billionaire.
07:53And not just any global billionaire, a global billionaire with potentially a very mucky history, you know?
08:09When we initially began investigating this, we were looking into the death of Scott Young.
08:14But it became increasingly clear to us as we looked into our documents that Berezovsky was the true centre of this story.
08:23And if we were going to understand what had happened, we needed to understand Berezovsky's past.
08:30So Boris Berezovsky, like Scott, is a rags-to-riches story.
08:38Boris, very humble upbringing, becomes a mathematician, really successful, you know?
08:43And then he was in his late 40s, capitalism comes, and the guy became a veritable Russian tycoon.
08:52Newspapers, airlines, property, automobile companies, all the classic accoutrements of capitalist success.
09:02But obviously, with the Russian twist.
09:05He was absolutely honest and dishonest. At the same time, he was kind and he was evil.
09:17And then he became one of the most powerful men in the country.
09:22After 1996, Berezovsky essentially became Boris Yeltsin's grey cardinal.
09:28He was the man behind the scenes in the Kremlin.
09:32He got a few formal state positions.
09:35But his real power was in the way that he could shape the decisions that Yeltsin was taking.
09:41Prime ministers come and go, but Boris Berezovsky survives the power behind the throne.
09:47He's on a mission to spread the creed of capitalism to those the new Russia has left behind.
09:52For most Russians, this was a period of real misery, of real hardship.
10:01At the same time, though, a minute fraction of Russians were becoming obscenely rich,
10:08essentially through rigged auctions of state assets being privatized.
10:12And Berezovsky took advantage of the situation.
10:15They believe that I'm a person who is able to give them not just hope, but the real way for the future.
10:35What were some of the bureaucratic hurdles that you faced in St. Petersburg?
10:38I know why you're asking this.
10:44You're going to ask about how I met Mr. Putin.
10:51We had a car dealership, but we had no documents for the land on which it was staying.
11:02Without this document, we have nothing.
11:06Even with all the political events, it was very hard to get certain documents.
11:16Putin at the time was a fairly kind of grey and anonymous bureaucrat from St. Petersburg when he was there as the deputy mayor.
11:24After seven months of fighting for this piece of paper, Boris told me that, you know, there is one man in St. Petersburg.
11:31You go there, maybe you'll have lunch together.
11:37Explain it to him and he will help.
11:40I never heard the name of Putin before that.
11:43I went to a restaurant.
11:45I started explaining to Putin the situation with the land.
11:51He listened to me very attentively.
11:54Then went to the window, spoke for a short time on his mobile.
12:01And then told me that, okay, go to this person, you'll get your paper.
12:10I was glad to meet you.
12:12Why? I said, well, and lunch?
12:15He said, no.
12:17You invited me to lunch.
12:20You didn't invite me to discuss business.
12:24You start to discuss business, there will be no lunch.
12:27Glad to meet you and he left.
12:30In five minutes, I got the document.
12:33Went back to Moscow.
12:35Called Boris and said, Boris, who is this guy?
12:38And Boris said, well, you know, he's a very special person.
12:51Yeltsin was old, he was ill, he'd had heart attacks.
12:53He'd had heart attacks.
12:56Berezovsky and the oligarchs were starting to look for a transition to a new president,
13:04which would not see too much damage for the guys who'd been involved in the old presidency.
13:12I approached Boris in 98, offering him to write his biography.
13:19Boris knew that he could trust me and this was a big deal and I think that's why he allowed basically me to be around.
13:31I became very close with Boris and he started to take me with him wherever he would travel.
13:38At one point, he told me that they found a person who would become next president of Russia.
13:52You know, and so the story goes, the oligarchs are looking about and they're like,
13:57who's someone who's really, like, pliable?
13:59We want, like, a Mr. Nobody, someone, like, malleable.
14:04And then one of them's like, well, how's about this guy, Vladimir Putin?
14:10Like, we get him in, he's a functionary, and he'll do whatever we want.
14:15I was very upset.
14:18Oh, because the guy was working for KGB all his life.
14:21I mean, come on, are there any other Russians around?
14:24I mean, it's a huge country.
14:27I told him that they're making a major mistake.
14:34For Boris, this is an issue of personal security.
14:39Berezovsky thought that the quid pro quo would be that he would maintain a, you know,
14:46close position within Putin's court, would be an advisor and really would be a kind of puppet master
14:51who could pull the strings on what he thought was this faceless bureaucrat,
14:56who he hoped would continue to do his bidding.
14:59You can imagine how that turned out.
15:02Like, I mean, that fucking blew up in their faces, right?
15:04That's right.
15:09In Russia today, the clear winner of the Russian presidential election,
15:13Vladimir Putin, began to establish the Putin era.
15:16So I want to thank you very much.
15:19And thank you very much.
15:21Thank you very much.
15:23Thank you very much.
15:25Thank you very much.
15:27Thank you very much.
15:29Thank you very much.
15:31Hadam Bet!
15:54Thank you very much.
15:56Cheers.
15:58Putin gets elected as president and things change incredibly rapidly after that.
16:10He decided, enough of the old ways.
16:14I'm going to rid myself of these hangers-on.
16:20And in a very dramatic meeting in the Kremlin, he called in all the oligarchs and he said,
16:25look, this is the new way things are going to be done.
16:28It's not going to be you pulling the strings anymore.
16:34It's going to be me in charge.
16:36If you want to keep your wealth, you keep out of politics.
16:40And that means no criticism of me, no financing other political parties,
16:45an acceptance that your days as the power behind the throne are over.
16:51And if you sign up to all that, then we'll get along just fine.
16:58And Berezovsky was the man who really took this as a personal affront.
17:04The power struggle between Berezovsky and Putin started immediately there.
17:10The oligarchs wanted Berezovsky out.
17:16No one wanted him to be around.
17:34He became a problem.
17:35As an oppositionist, he was very weak.
17:46Putin, of course, had the entire system behind him.
17:50Including the FSB.
17:54Putin, of course, had the entire system behind him.
18:15He was very sick.
18:16Including the FSB.
18:24Berezovsky, he was like a man in a barroom fight.
18:26He knows he can't win.
18:28And his friends were all saying to him,
18:30back off, back off, it's not worth it.
18:32but he keeps going he keeps fighting because there's something in the russian character
18:37he felt that there was something more important than wealth you know call it honor call it pride
18:44call it hubris call it stupidity he was like a you know a dog with a bone and he just wouldn't let go
18:51when vladimir putin came to power he had turned into the strong man at the center of power in russia
19:08putin's and berizovsky's relationship came to a head when there was a catastrophe of russian nuclear
19:16submarine it was a terrible tragedy of the kursk submarine disaster there was terrible accident
19:25an explosion inside a torpedo tube sailors were trapped inside this sunk submarine the russian
19:33fleet did not have the rescue submarines that could have possibly taken the crew out so they all died
19:40but what made it even worse was that putin basically played it off as if it was not that
19:47important and the families of submariners shouldn't be giving him a hard time
19:59berizovsky's network broadcasted reports
20:10they were not very complimentary of putin putin felt that berizovsky had not just let them down
20:23but they had in some ways declared war by allowing people to highlight the terrible mismanagement of
20:30this awful situation after that point putin really designated berizovsky an enemy and started to go after
20:37him there was a time when i'd see him quite often i was gathering material for my book and it was my
20:48idea to record the conversations um how would you describe yourself as a person it's no one definition
21:00is correct the thing i liked about these recordings is it was the real berizovsky he wasn't putting on a
21:06front he wasn't thinking about what he was going to say he wasn't doing an interview for television
21:10he was just talking
21:22you i swear to support uh ideas and if you follow ideas i will support you yes if you
21:31will go against i will go against he was very surprised i said goodbye forever
21:38berizovsky was facing state investigations of several of his companies um the fsb was was raiding
21:44the head offices of companies that he owned and launching investigations into his business dealings
21:50the game became very dangerous for berizovsky
21:54putin started to claim his power they opened the case they just took my house back
22:07i definitely made mistake in understanding of his character of his vision of russia
22:15peter warned that oligarchs who stepped out of line in the new russia would receive a crushing blow on the
22:20head i got a strong pressure from the state from general prosecutor office
22:29in autumn 2000 i had to leave russia
22:34berizovsky was perhaps the first of the super rich russians who settled in london but from the time
22:56berizovsky came later on london became heaven for russian big money
23:08business tycoons who were siphoning money out of russia because their money would not be safe
23:16they have amounts of money that literally boggled minds you know what i mean like we're talking about
23:21aladdin's caves of wealth it's a very strange environment mostly they are bored here they try to
23:31outshine each other who has a bigger car a bigger wheel or a bigger this a bigger that i mean the reason
23:38that so many russian dissidents end up in london it's london it's always been a permissive city
23:45whether you're bringing in dirty money or you want to go out and you want to drink and do
23:49cocaine until seven in the morning you can find it here it's one of the easiest place in the world
23:55to move money to london money nobody asks you anything the issue is trade relations between
24:02britain and russia in the past when russian companies want to do an ipo when they want to sell their shares
24:09they're not going to new york to do it in fact probably they might not be allowed to
24:13they're coming to london like we're talking about trillions in deals so the amounts of money that
24:19underpin all of this are huge that's really at the heart of the issue
24:30for borizovsky in russia money was always means to an end but he lost much of his money i would say
24:39between 80 and 90 percent of what he had in the process of moving to london much of it was expropriated
24:48by the putin government and so he wanted to make money obviously the british people that hang around
24:57the oligarchs it's a cross-section of society if you're an oligarch you want an accountant for your
25:05clean money you know you get the person who costs two thousand pounds an hour but let's say you want
25:09to move money that's less clean you know well maybe you go somewhere different you know maybe you find
25:14somebody who's come up the hard way you know who can act as a fixer or a facilitator
25:23someone like scott young you can understand why they were close because in many respects they were
25:29birds for feather you know they were cut from the same cloth there are two versions of how scott met
25:37boris borizovsky okay there's the version that scott likes to tell which is he turns up back at his
25:44stately home one day michelle runs out and she's like scott there's this weird guy in the house
25:52and he walks into the house and there's this like cannonball shaped guy sitting in a chair who's like
25:58hey this is my house now turns out this guy's boris barizovsky
26:07within a matter of weeks scott had sold him the house
26:12but you know there's an alternate history to this
26:17we have a lot of documentation which suggests that scott young had actually met barizovsky
26:21several years earlier in moscow scott had been doing various favors and facilitations for people
26:27in barizovsky's circle for a number of years there were a lot of kind of private intelligence reports
26:33tracking scott's relationship with boris barizovsky from the earliest days of barizovsky's move to the uk
26:41scott was his fixer he was the guy who first of all sold him the first property that he moved to
26:46and then barizovsky started using him as a front to funnel his money into british properties
26:53scott was finding all kinds of ways to help barizovsky spend his money in the uk
26:57while he was under an international arrest warrant and while many of his bank accounts were suspended
27:08scott young he's on his uppers financially he's like
27:11need a deal right but he knew how to turn a penny into a pound you know like he still had that
27:19that knowledge and he knew the people that could help him do it he's this guy flees to london and he
27:26needs money obviously like they were going to do something exceptionally crazy
27:41so
27:51so
27:55so
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