Before leaving Russia in the fall of 2007, Gutseriyev had agreed to sell his stake in RussNeft, Russia's seventh largest oil company, to fellow oligarch Oleg Deripaska. He resigned from RussNeft, accusing the Kremlin of persecuting him, and escaped before the authorities could execute an arrest warrant which was issued in August, 2007.

In a scenario strongly reminiscent of what happened to Yukos, the Russian tax service had slapped a demand for RUR20bn (USD800m) on RussNeft in respect of 2005, about equal to the firm's annual rate of profit. In May, 2008, they followed up with a further bill of RUR20bn for 2006.

In the case of Yukos, of course, the government locked up its owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Siberia (he is still there) and appropriated the company. In the case of RussNeft, the game is not yet over. The deal with Deripaska is on ice because the Anti-Monopoly Commission has yet to approve the merger, and it is supposed that some sort of battle is taking place within the Kremlin over Russneft's eventual ownership.

RussNeft itself is contesting the tax bills in court (as did Yukos) and has paid half of the first bill using a credit it was due for RUR10bn. No-one is saying how much Deripaska had already paid to Gutseriyev when he left, but the original deal is thought to have been insulated against the 2006 tax bill.

The Sunday Times included Mr Gutseriyev on its rich list of British residents last April with a fortune of USD3bn. In London he has joined a small but very rich colony of Russian emigres on the run from Putin's Russia, including Boris Berezovsky, who says he expects more Russians to arrive because the UK offers them protection against the Russian government, who he describes as 'gangsters'.

The British Embassy in Moscow and the Home Office, which have been embroiled in their own run-in with the Russians over the murder of Litvinenko in 2007, have refused comment on the status or whereabouts of Mikhail Gutseriyev.