SPANISH police arrested 41 people suspected of laundering over €250 million that the nation’s Interior Ministry said may include funds from embattled Russian oil company, Yukos.

A previously unknown Russian company called BaikalFinansGroup bought the core production unit of oil giant Yukos at auction for €7bn today, gaining control of one of Russia’s most prized oil assets for a fraction of what Yukos executives say it is worth.

The plain clothes officers who searched the headquarters of the Russian oil giant Yukos, beleaguered by a 99.4bn-ruble (€2.6bn) back taxes claim, were looking for evidence of tax-evasion by a Yukos subsidiary, a company spokesman said today.

Special forces in camouflage and black uniforms detained Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of Russia’s largest oil producer, Yukos, at an airport in Siberia today.