The Murderous Rise of Russia's Billionaires (Movie)

[Music] for many decades the ussr had been under communist role but when yeltsin became russian president in 1991 he introduced a variety of policies to dramatically shift russia towards capitalism like deregulating the price of goods and opening up the country to imports however through a combination of corruption and incompetence the initial transition was a disaster the value of the russian currency plummeted industrial output was halved and unemployment doubled but this abrupt switch in policy also made a small group of opportunists incredibly wealthy such as our story's protagonist boris berezovsky this man would go on to

become a billionaire oligarch dubbed the godfather of the kremlin but he came from very humble beginnings born jewish in an anti-semitic society and with no connections to the communist elite boris started out as an outsider and in communist russia the best he could have hoped for was a quiet life of books and studying but this was now the new capitalist russia where a man with a mathematically gifted mind like boris filled with merciless ambition could achieve almost anything his road to riches began with a simple opportunity he realized he could buy cars on consignment so

boris would buy loads of cars but he wouldn't pay the producers their money for months or even years by which point the currency was worth dramatically less it's essentially like you buying a car for ten thousand dollars but by the time you hand that money over it's only worth five thousand dollars and you've got a car that was worth double exploiting this simple loophole helped make boris his initial fortune but this brings us to the real start of our story in 1994 with businessman boris berezovsky sat in his mercedes impatiently looking at his expensive watch

to him it didn't measure time but lost opportunities you see he now had a lot of money but he was only just getting started and then [Music] a few seconds later boris found himself frantically crawling through a blur of flames and broken glass he spotted his driver and tried to call out to him only to realize he no longer had a head of course this explosion was no accident it was an assassination attempt on boris and it would not be the last in truth businessmen being murdered over deals gone bad was an almost daily occurrence

at this time in russia contributing to russia's nickname the wild east however boris made it out of that car explosion alive and at that moment had a realization he'd already made a lot of enemies and would no doubt make a lot more and so he needed the kind of protection that money alone couldn't buy he needed influence connections power and he knew that the way to get that was through politics of course not as a candidate but as a figure in the shadows pulling the strings it was time for him to make the step from

being just a wealthy businessman to becoming an oligarch whilst men like boris had profited from russia's switch towards free market policies most russian citizens certainly hadn't with the number of people in poverty rising dramatically the government's to blame and so we have to stand here selling our clothes needless to say by the time of the next election in russia yeltsin's odds of re-election were looking slim that was until a deal was struck behind closed doors boris berezovsky got together a small group of wealthy businessmen who would later become known as the seven bankers these were

people who had profited from russia's abrupt switch to capitalism and they very much wanted yeltsin to stay in power so together they devised a pact to contribute many millions of dollars to yeltsin's re-election campaign but in return for helping to get him re-elected they would get very generously rewarded and have a huge influence over the government's future decisions for example as part of yeltsin's policies to shift towards capitalism russia was privatizing the industries previously owned by the government however the process of selling these state-owned assets and companies was completely corrupt russia's most valuable state assets

were sold at a tiny fraction of what they were really worth to people who had connections to the government and amongst those people were the seven bankers who were given the chance to buy these huge companies for insanely low prices these two oligarchs were given the chance to purchase a state-owned oil company for a fraction of its real value well i can tell you that they bought it for 120 million dollars whereas its price when it was sold of 13 billion dollars and so because of this bribery and corruption a small pool of already wealthy

individuals ended up owning most of russia's most important industries and thus had control of the banks oil gas mining and media one notable example was that boris berezovsky was put in charge of russia's largest television channel ort and in exchange he would turn it into a propaganda machine that would run endless positive stories about yeltsin it was crony capitalism mutually advantageous relationships between business leaders and government officials it was win-win for those on the inside but disastrous for everyone else because before the seven bankers got involved yeltsin looked certain to lose this election but once

they started pumping endless money into his campaign and essentially controlling large parts of the media to give him constant positive coverage yeltsin managed to narrowly get re-elected for the seven bankers including boris berezovsky they had basically just bought a government because for the next few years whilst yeltsin was in power they had huge influence over political and economic life in russia and hence they had truly become oligarchs between them they had nearly half of all the wealth in russia and now they had the ear of the government as well and were able to influence policies

and go about their business completely unchecked and unregulated all of this at a time where most of the russian population was struggling to even put food on the table however boris was still not done during a meeting on a yacht he met a young businessman who had an intriguing offer for him that young businessman is our story's other protagonist and is today best known as chelsea football club's billionaire owner roman abramovich wait before we get to the next part of the story which is gonna get a little crazy i need to tell you something unless

you have all notifications turned on for this channel you quite likely won't get shown new videos so if you want more stories like this plus courses and documentaries about business wealth and influence please make sure you turn on the notification bell if you get an error when you try to do that simply unsubscribe and then immediately re-subscribe and then it will work thanks so much for all your support like most of the russian oligarchs roman abramovich came from nowhere his mother died of a blood disorder and his father was killed at an accident on a

construction site leaving him an orphan by the age of four as a result abramovic got shipped off to the freezing comey republic one of the harshest environments on the planet from there roman abramovich tried several different paths he studied engineering had a stint in the army and at one point became a mechanic but even from an early age he'd really seen himself as more of an entrepreneur and he eventually made the step into the business world one of his first business successes surprisingly came from selling rubber ducks and other children's toys but he soon reinvested

that money into much bigger prospects and in particular trading and transporting oil and then on the yacht where he met boris berezovsky he pitched him an idea roman abramovich wanted to acquire one of russia's largest oil companies sipneft but not just that he wanted to combine it with his existing business to create one giant company that produced refined transported and traded the oil it would be one of the largest oil companies in the entire world and by being in control of every step of the supply chain it would be absurdly lucrative now in normal circumstances

there's no way abramovic could afford to do this and the government would almost certainly not allow it anyway which is why abramovic was coming to boris a man he knew was in yeltsin's inner circle and had considerable influence within the governments abramovic could run the business himself but he needed boris's influence and connections to make the whole arrangement happen and so together they made a deal not long later president yeltsin privatized sibneft and abramovic was able to buy the business for around 100 million dollars from the russian governments even though some estimate that its true

value was several billion dollars in return abramovich funneled money from sibneft to boris in exchange for him taking care of the political side of things since there couldn't be any paper trail of this agreement it was fairly common for suitcases filled with cash often around a million dollars or so to be delivered to boris at times abramovic was frustrated by boris's demands for more and more money given that boris wasn't actually doing any work within the business but he knew that without boris they may no longer have the support of the russian government who are

the ones allowing them to continue and so boris continued to receive suitcases of money and abramovich continued to dominate the oil industry with his new giant company and thus for the duration of yeltsin's presidency boris abramovic and the other oligarchs all continue to thrive when you have so much money and power it's very easy to obtain even more money and power and so boris's lifestyle became increasingly extravagant with yachts and private planes but by 1999 another election was on the horizon and the oligarchs began to fear the communist party could get back into power this

time which for them would be game over all their wealth and influence would be taken away so the oligarchs needed a strong candidate to be yeltsin's successor who could help them win the election and the man that was put forward was a former kgb man by the name of vladimir putin now boris didn't see putin as a threat and thought he could be controlled just like the oligarchs had controlled yeltsin so once again the oligarchs used their wealth and influence to try and win the election and once again they succeeded when putin was officially announced

as the president of russia it seemed like another victory for the oligarchs [Music] however very shortly after putin got into power he declared he was going to take down the oligarchs on a televised press conference putin publicly announced that those who combine power and capital these oligarchs will cease to exist as a class a separation of business and politics this was a very popular move amongst the russian public who hated seeing the oligarchs live like royalty and do whatever they want while most of russia struggled in private putin gave the oligarchs a simple proposition you

can keep your wealth if you pay some form of tribute to me and then stay out of politics and stay out of my way many of the oligarchs like roman abramovich complied but others including boris berezovsky did not boris felt he'd contributed to getting putin into power in the first place and this was how he was getting repaid with a threat and no longer being able to have any influence over how the government was run not only that boris felt it was completely unfair to demonize the oligarchs in his view the oligarchs had helped save

russia from communism and they'd only benefited because they'd been quick and smart enough to do so why should this brand new president suddenly be able to undo all of that so boris was not going to give up that easily immediately he started using his television channel to push anti-putin's stories and in public he constantly spoke out against putin at every opportunity but with putin boris had met his match investigations into boris were ordered and by 2002 an arrest was issued on charges of money laundering and illegal business practices boris had to flee russia and go

into exile in london and whilst he did manage to escape arrest little did boris know this was the beginning of the end [Music] boris was now in exile in london forced out of his home and his country with his power and influence stripped away despite that boris kept on fighting he continued to put his time and money into his efforts to bring down putin he would throw money at any project that he thought would cause pain for the russian governments however this was becoming increasingly difficult under putin's leadership boris was found guilty of embezzlement and

lost many of his assets the government took that control of television channels like ort which boris had been using to spread his own messages for many years to make matters even worse boris was no longer any use to roman abramovic who gave him one final big payment but told him their deal was over no more money in suitcases their relationship was done which meant boris essentially had no income anymore and since he continued to live a very extravagant lifestyle in london spending just as frivolously as he did before his fortune soon started to shrink quite

rapidly especially with the vast sums of money he needed to spend on security such as a team of bodyguards to follow him everywhere his situation was made even worse when his wife divorced him and he had to pay one of the largest divorce settlements in history boris was facing attacks on all fronts and his debts were mounting up he'd gone from being a billionaire to feeling poor but what stung most was that he'd lost respect he'd once been the man the go-to guy now he was no longer relevant even his protege abramovich who had once

come to him for help now had outgrown him and abandoned him in fact as boris saw abramovich's wealth and prestige continue to rise whilst his own declined he became more and more resentful but then boris had an idea an idea to fix his money troubles get one over on abramovic and most importantly of all make himself important to the world again boris berezovsky was about to sue roman abramovich in what would become the largest civil lawsuit in recorded history it was the ultimate showdown of the russian oligarchs happening within the english courts and the media

lapped it up boris was suing on the grounds that him and abramovic had had a 50-50 partnership within the oil company and that after boris fell out with putin abramovic had used threats and blackmail to force him to sell his ownership stake for a fraction of what it was really worth boris was claiming he was now owed the true value of those shares which was billions of dollars abramovich's defense was simple boris had never owned any of the company to begin with nothing was ever written down or made official the trial would go on for

nine months and dark details of both men's past would be exposed roman abramovich would reveal how he made obscene wealth from russia's corrupt privatization programme where he was able to acquire businesses from the russian government at rock bottom prices due to a rigged auction boris berazovsky would real how he made secret deals with government officials and was able to use his power to influence elections and government decisions the courtroom would also hear brutal details about the reality of business in russia during the switch to capitalism which included businessmen getting attacked poisoned and murdered in cold

blood but in the end after hearing everything the judge delivered a verdict on my analysis of the entirety of the evidence i found mr berezovsky an unimpressive and inherently unreliable witness who would have said almost anything to support his case the judge continued to speak but boris had already zoned out sure this had partly been about money but it had also been about his reputation the judge's words spun around his mind unreliable unimpressive he'd gambled on this very public court case and it had backfired he looked worse than ever and now he had to pay

for abramovich's court fees as well which came to over 50 million dollars it was all becoming clear now he'd lost everything after the trial boris became even more depressed he'd gone from being one of the richest men in russia and wielding immense political power to being exiled embarrassed and as one source put up a broken man boris was later found dead in his apartment in what was reported as a suicide the berezovsky had recently written to the president apologizing for his mistakes but this has not been verified by the berezovsky family boris berezovsky was found

dead in his home near london he was 67. an inquest has been told how the russian oligarch boris berejovsky has been left had been left a broken man after losing a multi-billion pound legal battle with the chelsea owner roman abramovich mr berezowski's former bodyguard who found his body said he had been depressed and had spoken of killing himself however an inquest into his death returned an open verdict leaving some to wonder whether this could have been yet another assassination attempt from boris's enemies and that finally they had succeeded or on the other hand was this

simply the tale of a man who had rose from nothing to become unimaginably rich and powerful only to end up broke alone and so miserable that he took his own life see this is how things work over in russia over there the political system is controlled by wealthy elites who buy influence and pull strings of the government whereas in america we speak english this clip is amusing but it's also worryingly true when we think of these oligarchs these ultra wealthy men manipulating politics behind the scenes it's tempting to think of it as a russian problem

but of course the only real difference between russia and almost any other country is that the russians have a name for them whatever country you're watching this from you may not use the term oligarch but money and politics are unfortunately always connected wherever you are [Music] if you're wondering how this video was made possible then the answer is today's video sponsor skillshare by now my guess is you've probably heard of skillshare but you might not be aware of what a huge range of useful online classes they have one class in particular that i'd recommend is

geordi's advanced video editing with adobe premiere which can help you produce some awesome creative videos if you check out the link in the description below the first 1000 people will receive a one month free trial to skillshare premium so you can get ad-free access to loads of useful classes like this one you'll also find a link below to get a free trial of the full adobe suite as well so you will be well on your way to creating some amazing content then after that you'll want to click here to check out our documentaries on some

present-day billionaires such as the incredible rise of jeff bezos and amazon