High flier brought low by his protégé
As the stocky Russian, a sworn enemy of then Russian president Vladimir Putin, leaves the store, he notices Roman Abramovich, aka “the Stealth Oligarch” — one of Putin’s closest allies — shopping next door at the elegant, and pricier, store Hermès.
For seven long years, he has waited for this opportunity. Bustling past Abramovich’s bodyguards, he bursts into the luxury boutique. “I have a present for you,” he tells his onetime protege. “This is to you from me!” The older oligarch throws a piece of paper at the man he once thought of as a son. But the younger Russian recoils, and the piece of paper — a writ in a $5.6bn (€4.3bn) private litigation case, the biggest ever filed anywhere in the world — flutters to the floor.
