Swiss Freeze Assets of 5 Charged in Russian Criminal Investigation

On March 11, 2004, Russian prosecutors said they had succeeded in having the Swiss Government freeze nearly $5 billion in assets in Switzerland belonging to the five persons connected with Yukos oil company, the entity which is the target of Russian investigations. Natalya Vishnyakova, the spokes person for the Russian prosecutors? office, said that the Swiss had frozen $4.8 billion in five separate banks held by 20 individuals for alleged large-scale misappropriation of state assets. Among the persons whose assets were affected included: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former chief executive and largest shareholder in Yukos; his partner Platon Lebdev, both of whom have been detained since last year on charges of fraud and tax evasion; Leonid Nevzlin and Vladimir Dubov, both now living in self-imposed exile. The announcement followed raids during the week before in the Swiss cantons of Zurich, Geneva, Freiburg and Schwyz, in which documents were seized and a number of people questioned.