Ukraine’s Richest Man Fights to Save Faltering Fortune

When Swiss prosecutors knocked on the door of DTEK Trading SA’s Geneva headquarters in February, they were on the trail of Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man. The billionaire, who controls the coal broker, was 2,000 miles away in Donetsk, Ukraine, brokering peace after protests had pushed Viktor Yanukovych, the country’s president -- and a longtime ally -- into exile.

The officials were investigating ties between DTEK and MAKO Trading SA, a company controlled by Yanukovych’s son Oleksander, whose assets, as well as those of his father’s and 16 others, were ordered frozen by the European Union. Within weeks of the surprise visit, Dmitry Firtash, another Ukrainian billionaire, was arrested in Vienna on a U.S. warrant.