Forbes.“If you don’t, he’ll take 100% of your wealth and throw you in jail.”Mr Browder described Putin to the US Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 as “one of the richest men in the world”.“I estimate that he has accumulated $200 billion of ill-gotten gains from these types of operations over his 17 years in power,” Mr Browder said.Another theory is that the Russian leader used nepotism to hand favours to his close circle, then gleaning money from ventures he helped create for them.
Kirill Shamalov, who was married to Putin's daughter Katerina Tikhonova, became a billionaire at 34-years-old after being allowed to borrow money from private banking company Gazprombank so he could buy a 17 per cent stake in the company Sibur from one of Mr Putin’s friends, Gennady Timchenko.Bloomberg columnist Leonid Bershidsky suggested Putin actually doesn't have much personal wealth, because he hasn't much need for it.“He has the whole country at his beck and call,” Bershidsky wrote in 2013.“It is enough for Putin to snap his fingers, and state-owned companies will cede assets to his friends at bargain-basement prices.
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