| The unofficial leader of the Russian opposition has just bought a £10m Surrey estate from Chris Evans, the former DJ and television personality. Berezovsky, 58, can settle into his British bolt hole because a court granted him political asylum in September, preventing his extradition to Russia to face a £9m fraud charge. It accepted he had a "well-founded fear of persecution" in his homeland. The former computer scientist made his first fortune from Logovaz, a Mercedes dealership that he sold for a reputed £350m in the early 1990s. He then bought a stake in the Sibneft oil giant in 1995, selling it two years later for £1 billion. Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at £2 billion in 2000, but he fled Russia that year when new president Vladimir Putin turned against him. First stop was his £39m estate in the south of France; then he turned up in London. Our valuation last year was too conservative because it seems that Berezovsky has managed to keep more of his fortune than we realised.
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2003: £1,000m
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