THE Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich was one of the key suspects in the lingering mystery over the possible misuse of a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to Russia.

Mr Abramovich and, in particular, his Runicom trading group are named in documentation from a Swiss inquiry into what happened to a huge injection of Western aid designed to prop up the ailing rouble.

As Mr Abramovich celebrates Chelsea’s 1-0 victory over Manchester United in their first Premiership fixture of the season yesterday, The Times can disclose details of the investigation.

The Swiss believed that Mr Abramovich, through Runicom, was one of the controllers of a web of secret caisses noires, usually translated as slush funds, which were operated by associates of the former President, Boris Yeltsin.

For the first time, the Swiss have publicly revealed why they were forced to abandon their investigation. Russia and the United States, it has emerged, refused to divulge what they knew about the scandal.

Marc Tappolet, the Geneva investigating magistrate in charge of the criminal inquiry, said that both superpowers ignored his repeated requests for help. Neither country would even reply to formal applications made through diplomatic channels for legal assistance.

As a wall of silence was erected from Moscow to Washington, the investigation was marred by violent intimidation. Laurent Kasper-Ansermet, the investigating magistrate who launched the Swiss investigation, was left bleeding and unconscious in an attack in St Petersburg during a visit to Russia.

The Swiss believed that from 1995, Russia had been creating a network of secret financial reserves abroad, making use of the “correspondence banking” system, where banks are partnered across borders. Runicom, the trading arm of Mr Abramovich’s Russian oil giant Sibneft, was supposed to be one of the controllers of this web. “Access to the caisses noires was limited to about a hundred people close to President Yeltsin who included political leaders as well as top industrialists or directors of private and state banks,” a Swiss investigator stated in a report in 2000. “I know that Runicom group has managed and still manages the caisses noires.”

The Swiss investigator linked Mr Abramovich’s Runicom to large-scale suspicious money flows through an account it allegedly controlled in Geneva.

The Times disclosed last month that Runicom SA, the Swiss branch of the Runicom group, has been forced into bankruptcy by the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development over a $15 million (£8 million) debt. The Swiss also examined a transfer of $235 million to an account linked to President Yeltsin’s daughter Tatiana Dyachenko.

Mr Abramovich is named in The Sunday Times Rich List as Britain’s wealthiest man, having amassed a fortune of £7.5 billion. Had the Swiss been able to complete their investigations, clues to the source of his affluence might have been revealed.

Mr Abramovich’s spokesman John Mann firmly denied any wrongdoing. “These charges against Runicom are as baseless now as they were when the case was dropped years ago. At that time, it was a politically-motivated attack but raising the issue now only serves the purpose of attempting to sully Mr Abramovich's good name with guilt by association,” he said.

“I would refer you to the public statements of the IMF and Russian Central Bank, who said they were satisfied with an audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers that determined that all of the IMF funds from 1998 were used properly. The IMF further stated that it was unable to supply Swiss prosecutors with additional information due to confidentiality arrangements with its partners. Runicom SA was already in the process of being wound down as a corporate entity in 1998 and audits showed it had only about $1.2 million pass through its accounts that year. As such, it is impossible for Runicom to have taken part in such major monetary transactions or to have been an active shareholder in other companies.”

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