MODERN-DAY RASPUTIN

Boris Berezovsky Dead at 67

Powerful Russian oligarch.

Boris Berezovsky, the most prominent of Russia's post-communist oligarchs, was found dead in southeast England Saturday at the age of 67. While the cause of death remains unknown, sources close to the tycoon are pointing to suicide. A close confidant of Berezovsky's told Russian TV he'd grown increasingly agitated in the months before his death. “All he had was debts. He was practically destroyed." Berezovsky rose to prominence in Russia via a relationship with Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s. Having proved his financial skills to Yeltsin, he became one of seven businessmen to oversee the division of the state sector and rapidly became a multibillionaire. By the end of the division, Berezovsky (and others) owned more than half of Russia's GDP. He fled to France and then England after investigations began into corruption charges against him in 2001.