Business Russian Style:: Gasprom Exec Found Shot in Head in Swimming Pool

A criminologist friend of the latest Gazprom-linked Russian tycoon to die in mysterious circumstances has claimed the multimillionaire was murdered.

Yuri Voronov, 61, head of a logistics company that held lucrative contracts with Gazprom in the Arctic, was found shot dead in the swimming pool of his mansion in an ultra-wealthy suburb of St Petersburg around 2pm Monday.

Voronov was found floating in the pool with a gunshot wound to his head, a Grand Power pistol nearby, and several spent cases at the bottom of the pool. A criminologist friend of the latest Gazprom-linked Russian tycoon to die in mysterious circumstances has claimed the multimillionaire was murdered.

He is at least the sixth wealthy Russian businessman to die in mysterious circumstances since the start of the year, many of them with links to Gazprom, and two of whom died in the same St Petersburg suburb as Voronov.

Professor Oleg Karataev, a top criminologist and dean of the law faculty at a St Petersburg university, said he was a close friend of Voronov and doubts that he took his own life.

Asked if it was a suicide, he said: 'He did not do this. He was killed. He didn't have the slightest reason. Did he shoot himself multiple times? I doubt it.'


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