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Documentary, Once Upon a Time in Londongrad 1of6 The Fourth Floor Window
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00:00I think there are two powerful corrupting forces often at play in the stories we tell.
00:22And those are money and the allure of vast riches.
00:30And the other is the intoxicating quality of power.
00:39These things drive people to cross boundaries and to forget themselves and to do things that perhaps they, in their natural selves, wouldn't necessarily have wanted to do.
00:50I'm often asked as an investigative journalist whether I get scared doing this kind of work.
01:00And my honest answer has always been, no.
01:07I have to say that that changed working on this story.
01:22A murder investigation being launched into the death of another Russian or British soil.
01:31He told his uncle a fortnight before he died.
01:47If anything happens to me in the next two weeks, it won't be an accident.
01:51Mama, I won't return, I'm sorry, I'm not alone.
01:54Pules are like grapes, they don't grow up.
01:56The flames are not growing, they're burning me out.
01:58Pucs, monster, gangster, gangster, money on the table.
02:01I have a night super-byte.
02:02It's time to die, time to release a copy.
02:04Roof, roof, roof.
02:07London is levitating on a sea of dirty money.
02:11It's time to die, time to release a copy.
02:13Roof, roof.
02:13If you deal with somebody who has a very suspicious track record, someday it will come back to haunt you.
02:39In 2014, BuzzFeed approached me about setting up an investigations team in London.
02:43I knew BuzzFeed for its lists and quizzes and cat-related content.
02:50I was like, aren't you guys the cat people?
02:54But I'd worked at a couple of newspapers with declining circulations.
03:00BuzzFeed really seemed like a great opportunity to do something new and innovative.
03:05And so it felt like a no-brainer.
03:07Very shortly after I arrived in the newsroom, my first week in the job,
03:11I got a call come through for me on the switchboard.
03:15And it was from somebody who didn't want to identify herself,
03:18but she asked me to come and meet her at an address in a smart part of London.
03:23And so I went to this apartment.
03:26My interest was piqued.
03:28And kind of climbed the stairs and knocked on the door, and the door swung open.
03:32And it was Michelle Young, who I knew from one of the longest ever divorce cases in British legal history.
03:41Her husband was Scott Young, the multimillionaire super fixer for some of the world's richest men.
03:47This is a man who had a supposed total net worth of about £400 million.
03:55But when it came to the divorce case, his whole fortune had apparently gone up in a puff of smoke,
04:00and he had claimed to be penniless.
04:03If I have £20 million to grow, would you be happy?
04:07Yes, I know.
04:09I will get cracking on a couple of ventures.
04:12I'll be tied to her wife in a very long battle.
04:15OK, let's just say £25, because it's a nice round-up, OK?
04:18Well, no, no, I don't want £25, it's about £30 million.
04:21Is this a fucking deal, or do you not want to do a deal?
04:24How can you ask for any more than that?
04:26After billions of pounds being hidden, and I've got the evidence.
04:29He was ordered to pay about £20 million to Michelle.
04:44And the money never materialised, got never paid up.
04:48And then, around a year later...
04:59Bankrupt property tycoon Scott Young has died
05:14after reportedly falling onto railings
05:16outside a luxury flat in central London.
05:19Police say Young's death is not being treated as suspicious.
05:22Testing, Jane Bradley, I'm at Michelle's house, testing.
05:34Heidi first mentioned Scott Young's name to me
05:36pretty much as soon as I got the BuzzFeed job.
05:40So we went to do the big interview with her,
05:42where I was the camera, and filmed the interview.
05:46Yeah, great.
05:47Jane, it's your job to make this look good.
05:48Pretty much from 12, I was just always nosy, I was curious,
05:55I loved writing, I loved asking questions.
05:58So for a really long time, I'd known I wanted to be a journalist.
06:04So when this story came through,
06:07I thought, wow, this will be a really kind of interesting,
06:12murky story to look into.
06:15What do you want to say about how you believe he died?
06:21I'm just very, very honest.
06:24The fact, I don't believe it was he committed suicide.
06:29I don't believe he fell.
06:33I believe he was murdered.
06:34Michelle believed that whoever had killed him
06:56was hiding his money from her,
06:58and she wanted me to investigate
07:00and get to the bottom of who had killed him
07:02and where the money had gone.
07:03Just after 5pm on the 8th of December in 2014,
07:07Scott Young fell from that fourth-floor window
07:10and was impaled on these railings here.
07:13The impact killed him instantly.
07:16His death was this quite extraordinary,
07:19grisly fall from his penthouse window.
07:22I was intrigued by how he had come to meet such an untimely end
07:27and what the secrets of the story really were.
07:31So you want me to start looking up, then look down,
07:33or start looking at you, then look up, then look down?
07:34Start looking down.
07:35OK.
07:37I've never believed he committed suicide.
07:43I was just shocked.
07:45Shocked.
07:48Traumatised.
07:48Just before Scott's death,
08:00he was in the show Ladies of London
08:02with his current girlfriend, Noelle Reno.
08:10You're not going to carry me in?
08:12I will carry you in.
08:14Scott was obviously very good at acting.
08:17I wouldn't say an A-class actor,
08:19I'd say a B-class actor.
08:22We're both in the Sunday Times app.
08:23Yeah.
08:24Yeah.
08:24She was in the fashion section,
08:26I was in the prime section.
08:27I mean, it was quite clear
08:33he was still living a very luxurious lifestyle.
08:36Scott, how are you?
08:37Tell me about the new plane.
08:38We're enjoying it.
08:39Yeah, we're feeling settled there.
08:40We got in.
08:41We love the area.
08:42We're happy for now.
08:43That's great.
08:45When Scott had been found dead,
08:48after everything that had happened,
08:51I was just utterly shocked.
08:57Michelle had this very large amount of documentation
09:01and digital evidence in relation to Scott Young,
09:05much of which had come out
09:07during the disclosure process
09:08of her divorce battle with Scott over eight years.
09:11We ended up with 250 boxes of documents.
09:15And so we were going to be able
09:16to really thoroughly investigate
09:18what happened to Scott Young.
09:21The first question was,
09:22how are we going to get our heads around
09:24this volume of material?
09:25That was where Richard Holmes came into the picture.
09:30When I found out that BuzzFeed
09:32was putting money into investigative journalism,
09:35I wanted to be part of that.
09:38I first reached out to Heidi, I think, on Twitter,
09:41and then followed up with an email.
09:45And I don't think she initially responded to that email.
09:48He'd been bugging me on Twitter for months,
09:51saying that he really wanted a job with us.
09:52I took it upon myself to send her about three emails a month
09:57for about three months
09:59until she finally got back to me.
10:03I was like, hang on,
10:05we have this very eager young potential helper
10:07and we have an enormous quantity of information.
10:10So we hired Richard
10:12and told him his mission
10:14was to scan every single one of those documents by hand.
10:18And Richard was more than game for the task.
10:27There's 250 plus boxes here,
10:29they want me to scan them all.
10:31Heidi said, if you could get that done in a month,
10:33that would be great.
10:35He'd been having to tear the staples
10:37out of each of these documents with his bare hands.
10:40Shocking.
10:41When we started looking into all this unseen evidence
10:46and then the bigger picture really became apparent,
10:51it kind of became a focus for the whole team,
10:55which was really rare,
10:56but that was kind of how important a story Heidi felt it was.
11:00So my background in journalism,
11:07I did a lot of what they call data journalism.
11:09It was kind of the geeky stuff,
11:11do you know what I mean?
11:11That was kind of my flex.
11:16The abridged answer as to why I wanted to be
11:18an investigative reporter is like,
11:20you know, you just want to fuck shit up.
11:24And we spent months on end
11:26just looking at documents about Scott's life
11:28and you build up a picture
11:30of who this person is, you know?
11:34To be honest,
11:35you know, I kind of came to admire him
11:37because it is like the rags to riches tale.
11:42So he's born in a tenement in Dundee.
11:44This is not like a guy
11:45who's born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
11:48Grows up, he gets in club promoting.
11:51He was very charming,
11:54lots of charisma.
11:55He was extremely funny.
11:56I kind of couldn't get rid of him.
11:58He was kind of there.
12:00And, you know, after a couple of dates,
12:02he said, I'm going to marry you
12:03and you're going to have my babies.
12:05And at the time, I just thought,
12:06yeah, sure.
12:08But I did marry him.
12:09We had two beautiful daughters
12:11living a very happy family life.
12:15And the rest was history.
12:17How and when did you first meet Scott Young?
12:20Well, he pulled up at a brand-new red Ferrari
12:24and he climbed the kerb
12:27so it stood out like a sore thumb.
12:32I never saw him in the same car ever.
12:35Ferraris, Porsches, Bentleys, everything.
12:37And his wife did say he had a car
12:40for every day of the week.
12:41I think he had a new car
12:42for every day of the year.
12:44When I met him,
12:45it seemed everybody knew him
12:46and he knew everybody else, you know.
12:48He was a character.
12:49I said, he was definitely a character.
12:51I think he wanted to be
12:52the richest man on the planet.
12:54Very impressive.
12:55Nice guy.
12:55Shook his hand.
12:56Great.
12:57You know, we're good friends
12:58from then onwards.
12:59We had lunch together
13:00five days a week.
13:02He was always up to something.
13:02He was always doing deals
13:03all over the place.
13:04He had a lot of very good
13:06high-tech start-up companies.
13:09That was where he'd already made
13:11a majority of his fortune.
13:14From there, he bought
13:15some magnificent houses.
13:17He had a vast,
13:18a vast array of property.
13:21But, you know,
13:22he worked very long hours.
13:24So, you know,
13:26he was at home when he could be.
13:30At the same time,
13:32Scott had become
13:33the fixer
13:34if you wanted to hide
13:36a dubious trail of money.
13:38He got involved with, like,
13:40one of Britain's biggest crime families.
13:42The Addams Family.
13:43The Addams Family.
13:43The Addams Family.
13:45One of London's
13:46and the country's
13:47longest established
13:48organised crime gangs.
13:50Scott became particularly close
13:52to one of the bosses
13:53of that family.
13:54He was helping them
13:55legitimise their ill-gotten earnings.
13:58I had no idea
13:59the people that he'd been involved with
14:01over many years.
14:02There are stories of Scott
14:06going to nightclubs
14:07and spending £50,000
14:10on coke
14:11and spraying champagne
14:13across the crowd.
14:17Flying on private jets
14:19and holidaying on yachts.
14:21He was talking about ordering
14:23a yacht,
14:24a helicopter,
14:25and we was looking
14:26at substantial houses.
14:34Scott had been
14:35playing away from home
14:37for a long time.
14:37He had a whole series
14:39of different girlfriends
14:40living his own life
14:44separate and apart
14:45from his family.
14:48This was the kind of lifestyle
14:49he'd led.
14:50and it was one of just
14:51kind of breathtaking luxury,
14:53but also an increasing cloud
14:56of danger.
15:06I am Kave Musavi.
15:07I am a human rights lawyer.
15:09I'm an international arbitrator
15:11and I like to think
15:12we do well by the law
15:14and by justice.
15:17In 1996,
15:18I saw this beautiful house
15:19and we fell in love with it.
15:21It had a tremendous history.
15:23One of the extensions
15:24was my office
15:25and that's where
15:26I was working
15:27on that fateful Sunday
15:28when Scott Young turned up.
15:37He was driving past
15:38and he'd seen the house
15:39and his wife
15:41and he had decided
15:42there and then
15:43that they wanted
15:43to buy this house.
15:45He was the usual Scott.
15:47I have a plane to catch
15:48and I've got Concorde
15:49at six o'clock.
15:51I'm in a hurry.
15:52Make up your mind
15:52right now.
15:55And then the penny dropped.
15:57He wanted to buy this house.
15:58Cash.
16:00I said,
16:00Scott, I can't do that.
16:02I cannot take
16:03millions of pounds in cash.
16:06He said,
16:06I'll help you set up
16:07an account in Switzerland
16:08and I will deposit the cash
16:10and it'll be bank in secrecy.
16:12I said,
16:13Scott, you know,
16:14we're here on a short journey
16:16and I really want to
16:17try and make it to that
16:18without too many problems.
16:21But I mean,
16:21there are rules here.
16:23We managed eventually
16:24to overcome those problems.
16:26He was able to organize
16:27as a banking arrangement
16:28and so the house was sold.
16:32And the last I heard
16:33was that he was impaled
16:35on the railings in London.
16:38But when you look at
16:40the unsavory activities
16:42that we now know
16:43Scott was involved in,
16:44the old adage,
16:46if you sleep with dogs,
16:47don't expect not to catch fleas.
17:02Scott's two daughters,
17:04Sasha and Scarlett,
17:05didn't learn of their father's death
17:06until some days after the event.
17:09And they couldn't quite believe
17:11that he had died.
17:13They knew that he had checked himself
17:15into a secure psychiatric unit
17:16days before
17:17and wasn't yet due to have left.
17:19So they believed him
17:19still to be safely there.
17:24Scott struggled for years
17:25with substance abuse.
17:29People were worried
17:29about his mental well-being.
17:32Well, it started, you know,
17:34early on in our relationship
17:35and he had this really bad temper.
17:39And for no reason,
17:41he would just throw things,
17:44be quite violent.
17:45And, you know,
17:48it was actually shocking
17:49to actually see, you know,
17:51someone for no reason
17:53would just basically
17:56turn into a psychopath.
18:02This happens a lot.
18:03Very powerful people,
18:06they have this very domineering side.
18:10But, you know,
18:11I fell in love with him, you know,
18:12and you take the good
18:15with a bad.
18:18Before he died.
18:20Basically,
18:21he'd had an episode.
18:23He'd come in for cocaine-induced psychosis.
18:27This was something
18:27that should tail off
18:28and afterwards
18:29he should have been okay.
18:31When he died,
18:33Scott had actually come
18:34from the psychiatric hospital
18:35that day
18:36and checked himself out
18:38and come back to the flat
18:40where Noel Reno
18:42was just about to have
18:43the locks changed
18:44on the flat
18:45because they had
18:45recently broken up.
18:48Noel Reno
18:49was the last one
18:50to see him alive.
18:52Apparently,
18:53they was having an argument
18:54and she asked him
18:56to leave the apartment
18:57and he wouldn't.
18:59and she said she went off
19:02to have a coffee.
19:04The story then goes
19:05that Scott called Noel
19:07and told her
19:08that he was going to jump
19:09out of the window.
19:13Within 15 minutes
19:14of her leaving,
19:15he was found dead.
19:16she told the police
19:20that she believed
19:21he killed himself
19:21and it was her testimony
19:24that Scott told her
19:25he was going to jump.
19:26That really swung
19:27the police,
19:29you know,
19:29into making this determination
19:31that he definitely
19:32committed suicide.
19:34What's kind of left out
19:35of that story
19:36is that Scott
19:37had told his friends
19:38that he believed
19:39that there were
19:40hit squads out
19:41to get him.
19:41He feared he was
19:42going to be poisoned.
19:43He believed that his life
19:44was in danger.
19:45He'd asked for police protection.
19:48Scott became
19:49very mentally unstable.
19:52There were issues
19:54that he was having
19:54and it was trying
19:55to look at those
19:58and take those
19:58into account
19:59but also look at
19:59the external threat
20:00that there was to Scott.
20:05Scott had a pattern
20:06of when he felt
20:08he was under threat
20:09checking himself
20:10into psychiatric hospitals.
20:11There were several occasions
20:12where he specifically
20:14told his daughters
20:14he'd done that
20:15because he was frightened
20:16and he felt
20:17it was a safe place
20:18to avoid people
20:19he felt were coming
20:20to kill him.
20:22He got admitted
20:23showing all kinds
20:23of signs of mania
20:25and florid delusions
20:27and then as soon
20:29as the threat had passed
20:30suddenly he was
20:31magically better again
20:32and ready to discharge himself.
20:34He thought there was
20:35people following him.
20:37If anyone had come
20:38and sat next to us
20:39he said they're following him
20:40and I used to think
20:41it was all nonsense
20:42but I found out
20:43later in life
20:43that it wasn't nonsense
20:44they were following him.
20:46And the last time
20:48he admitted himself
20:48to psychiatric hospital
20:49he was frightened
20:50he believed people
20:51were after him
20:52he told people
20:53that he was going
20:53to be lying low
20:54in there for a few days.
20:57When I was told
20:59that he was dead
21:00the whole thing
21:01did not add up.
21:04I knew
21:05there was something
21:06seriously wrong
21:07because there's
21:09no way
21:10Scott would have
21:12jumped out
21:12out of that window.
21:13He was absolutely
21:16petrified of heights.
21:19What happened
21:20to Scott's laptops?
21:22What happened
21:22to all his mobile phones?
21:26There are so many things
21:27about Scott's death
21:29that point to
21:30suspicious circumstances.
21:32The police went in
21:34they didn't dust
21:34for fingerprints
21:35they took a few photos
21:36of the scene
21:37they performed
21:39very little
21:39forensic investigation.
21:44We are left
21:46with burning questions
21:47about whether
21:48his death
21:48was in fact
21:49a suicide.
21:50We had such
22:03a plethora
22:04of information
22:05you got
22:07insight into
22:08his emails
22:09into his phone records
22:10into his transactional data
22:12and I really started
22:13to develop
22:13a sense
22:14for who this guy was.
22:16It was clearly
22:17a man
22:18who wasn't
22:18this ultra wealthy
22:19individual
22:21who was very stable
22:22and standing
22:22on a huge amount
22:23of wealth
22:23he was clearly
22:24someone who was
22:25you know
22:25frantically taking
22:26money from wherever
22:27he could
22:28just to pay off
22:28people that he'd
22:29previously loaned off.
22:32It became clear
22:33that there were
22:34people who
22:35he was trying
22:36to escape from.
22:39The moment
22:40the penny
22:41really dropped
22:41was when I read
22:42an email
22:43that he sent
22:44and he said
22:45don't call
22:47the house phone
22:48we've had
22:49murders
22:50you can see
22:52this flurry
22:52of text messages
22:53and emails
22:53to people
22:54saying
22:55I'll get you
22:56your money
22:57and as I read
22:58on more and more
22:59and found more
23:00information about Scott
23:01and what he was doing
23:02the same name
23:04started to show up
23:06multiple times
23:07and that was
23:08Boris Borisovsky.
23:10Boris Borisovsky
23:22is known
23:23fairly widely
23:23in Russia
23:24as the godfather
23:24of the oligarchs.
23:25How are you?
23:26Good morning.
23:28Today
23:29worse than
23:30yesterday
23:31but better
23:32than tomorrow.
23:32he's part
23:36of that group
23:37of super rich
23:38Russian businessmen
23:39who made
23:40their spoils
23:41after the fall
23:42of communism
23:42in the kind
23:43of smash
23:43and grab
23:44era
23:44that came
23:45as Russia
23:46moved into
23:46its new
23:47capitalist economy.
23:51But there's
23:52another side
23:53of Boris
23:53Borisovsky
23:54which is
23:54extremely seedy
23:55and unpalatable
23:56and he was
23:58linked to
23:58dangerous people.
24:00When we found
24:02out about
24:02Scott Young's
24:03connections
24:03with Boris
24:04Borisovsky
24:04we knew
24:06that anyone
24:07who was
24:08known to be
24:09connected
24:09with Borisovsky
24:10was in danger.
24:16Scott was
24:17you know
24:18he was very
24:19secretive
24:20and I think
24:21the fact
24:22he was having
24:23affairs
24:23and he didn't
24:24want
24:24you know
24:25even though
24:26you know
24:28he said
24:28he loved
24:28me
24:29he had
24:29was leading
24:30a double
24:30life.
24:33He didn't
24:34want me
24:35to know
24:35exactly
24:35where the
24:38money was
24:38and what
24:39he was
24:39doing.
24:41We got
24:41invited to
24:42dinner
24:42and when
24:45we arrived
24:45there was
24:46Boris
24:47Borisovsky
24:48and that was
24:49when I first
24:50realised
24:50Scott had
24:51any involvement
24:52with Russians.
24:56Boris
24:56traveled
24:57with his
24:57wife
24:58of that
24:59time
24:59in one
25:00car
25:00and then
25:00another
25:01car
25:01full of
25:02secret service
25:03bodyguards
25:04because
25:05there
25:06had
25:06already
25:06been
25:06attempts
25:07on
25:07his
25:07life.
25:08when
25:11there was
25:13a tragedy
25:13because
25:14in 10
25:15centimeters
25:16from me
25:16it
25:16was
25:17in 10
25:17meters
25:18from me
25:19and
25:19it
25:20can't
25:21I said to Scott, be very careful mixing with the Russians.
25:45These are dangerous people.
25:52You're risking your life.
26:15You're risking your life.
26:22You're risking your life.
26:27You're risking your life.
26:32You're risking your life.
26:47You're risking your life.
26:53You're risking your life.
27:03You're risking your life.
27:06You're risking your life.
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