In July 2012, a shell company registered in the British Virgin Islands wired $US20 million ($27 million) to an investment vehicle in the Cayman Islands that was controlled by a large American hedge fund firm.
The wire transfer was the culmination of months of work by a small army of handlers and enablers in the United States, Europe and the Caribbean. It was a stealth operation intended, at least in part, to mask the source of the funds: Roman Abramovich.
