Lost Fortune Pits Rich Russian Against Rothschild in New York Court
Oil magnate Sergey Bogdanchikov claims the bank lost half his $150 million portfolio in a kickback scheme. His lawsuit tells a strange tale of stately European villas and Brooklyn’s bustling Brighton Beach.
The Edmond de Rothschild bank’s old Luxembourg offices were as fancy an address as you could get in the rich European duchy. On a side street by the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy, the turreted villa exuded prestige and security in equal measure.
Two decades ago this month, senior officers there signed the paperwork with Russian oil magnate Sergey Bogdanchikov that entrusted his growing fortune to the storied bank. But instead of protecting and increasing his wealth, Bogdanchikov claims, a prominent relationship manager at the bank steered it to a coterie of accomplices across Europe and the U.S. who cost him more than half his $150 million through wrong-way bets and kickbacks to Rothschild.