A multi-millionaire Russian businessman has been found shot dead at his mansion.
He is the sixth wealthy businessman with links to the Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom to have been found dead in unnatural circumstances since the start of the year.
Yuri Voronov, 61, was head of a logistics company that held lucrative contracts with Gazprom in the Arctic.
His body was discovered floating in the swimming pool of his mansion in an elite village close to St Petersburg on Monday.
He had suffered a gunshot wound to the head.
A pistol is said to have been found nearby, with ‘several spent cartridges’ allegedly located at the bottom of the pool.
The Russian Investigative Committee is investigating his death which is believed to be linked to ‘a quarrel with partners’.
His wife has reportedly told investigators that Voronov had believed he was being swindled by contractors and partners who had ‘behaved dishonourably’ for several weeks.
The businessman is understood to have feared he had ‘lost a lot of money’.
No visitors to his home in the Leningrad region were spotted by security cameras.
Mr Voronov’s death follows reports of a number of other deaths at mansions in the elite suburb of St Petersburg fuelling rumours murders are being staged to look like suicides.
Alexander Tyulakov, 61, a senior Gazprom financial and security official at deputy general director level, was found dead in his mansion the day after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
His body was discovered in his £500,000 mansion in an apparent suicide but reports suggest he had been badly beaten shortly before he ‘took his own life’.
Three weeks earlier, in the same gated community, Leonid Shulman, 60, head of transport at Gazprom Invest, was found stabbed to death his bathroom floor.
Billionaire Alexander Subbotin was found dead in May after ‘taking advice from shamans’.
The 42-year-old was former top manager at energy giant Lukoil and owner of a shipping company.
One theory surrounding his death is that he was poisoned by toad venom triggering a heart attack.
In April, wealthy Vladislav Avayev, 51, a former Kremlin official, appeared to have taken his own life after killing his wife Yelena, 47, and daughter, 13. He had high-level links to the leading Russian financial institution Gazprombank.
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