Final Monday, the U.S. Division of Justice dropped a bombshell when it indicted a former FBI agent and a former Russian diplomat and interpreter on costs of cash laundering and violating sanctions to assist sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The 21-page indictment reads just like the script of a mobster flick: the defendants discuss with their sanctioned shopper as “our pal from Vienna,” “you recognize whom” and “the large man.”

However essentially the most placing allegation is that Deripaska sought to retain the previous particular agent, Charles McGonigal, and the previous diplomat, Sergey Shestakov, to conduct an investigation into one other, unnamed Russian oligarch with whom Deripaska was “contesting management over” a “massive Russian company” within the spring of 2021. The trouble allegedly concerned wanting into the rival oligarch’s belongings outdoors of Russia and the likelihood that he held one other passport in addition to his Russian one.

An individual conversant in the scenario informed Forbes that “most likely [the oligarch] is Vladimir Potanin.” Vladimir Potanin is considered one of Russia’s richest individuals with an estimated $27.5 billion fortune. The “Russian company” possible refers to Norilsk Nickel, one of many world’s largest producers of nickel and palladium, often known as Nornickel.

“Deripaska was gathering supplies to file a lawsuit in London [against Potanin] with a view to drive a brand new shareholder settlement for Norilsk Nickel to be concluded on the identical phrases,” the individual added. A consultant for Deripaska didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

It’s not the primary time that Deripaska and McGonigal have been within the highlight: They have been each concerned within the FBI investigation into the contacts between Russia and Donald Trump‘s 2016 presidential marketing campaign. An FBI deputy assistant director stated in 2020 that an electronic mail from McGonigal in 2016 concerning Trump marketing campaign advisor George Padadopoulos’ claims to have “political filth” on Hillary Clinton helped spark the Trump-Russia investigation, whereas the FBI reportedly attempted to recruit Deripaska as a possible informant, on condition that he had beforehand employed Paul Manafort, Trump’s former marketing campaign chairman, as an adviser. In a publish on his Reality Social platform on Tuesday, Trump mentioned of McGonigal: “Could he Rot In Hell!”

Beginning in 2018, the indictment alleges, McGonigal started working with Shestakov and an “worker and agent of Deripaska” cited as “Agent-1.” The indictment lays out the lengths to which McGonigal and Shestakov allegedly went to dig up filth on the rival oligarch. The trouble started in August 2021, when the 2 defendants, working with “Agent-1,” drafted and executed a contract with a Cyprus company that might in flip pay a New Jersey-based agency—owned by a pal of McGonigal—$41,790 a month and $51,280 upon execution of the contract for “enterprise intelligence companies, evaluation, and analysis related to the [Russian corporation], its enterprise operations and shareholders.” Between August and November 2021, the New Jersey-based agency obtained a complete of $218,440 in funds wired from a Russian financial institution, based on the indictment.

As a part of the investigation, McGonigal allegedly retained a subcontractor to hold out a “soup to nuts” investigation of the oligarch and the Russian company. In October 2021, the subcontractor informed McGonigal {that a} third celebration had positioned “darkish net” recordsdata that exposed “hidden belongings valued at greater than $500 million” and “different data that McGonigal believed could be precious to Deripaska.” The indictment additional alleges that McGonigal and Shestakov negotiated with “Agent-1” to acquire funds from Deripaska to buy the darkish net recordsdata between late October and late November 2021; FBI particular brokers seized their private digital units on November 21, 2021.

The feud between Deripaska and Potanin dates again to April 2008, when Deripaska’s Rusal bought a 25% stake in publicly traded Nornickel from Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov in a cash-and-stock deal—estimated to be worth $14 billion—that included giving Prokhorov a 14% stake in Rusal. Prokhorov was Potanin’s unique associate in Nornickel, with the 2 males cofounding banking group Oneximbank in 1993 and later buying Nornickel by way of the notorious loans-for-shares scheme within the Nineties—an association wherein Potanin and different businessmen offered monetary backing for the reelection marketing campaign of Russian president Boris Yeltsin, in return for stakes in state-owned vitality and commodities belongings obtained at discount costs if Yeltsin received. (He did.)

Quickly after the 2008 deal closed, Deripaska and Potanin clashed over Potanin’s affect over Nornickel’s board, the corporate’s share buyback plan and purchases of belongings from Potanin’s Interros. They first reached a truce that December, when Rusal dropped its legal claim towards Nornickel over the corporate’s share buyback. However the battle had flared up once more by August 2010, when Rusal filed a request for arbitration towards Potanin’s Interros within the London Courtroom of Worldwide Arbitration and launched an internet site named “Save Norilsk Nickel” the next month.

One other Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, stepped in two years later to chill the tensions. He and his companions, fellow billionaires Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov, bought a 6% stake in Nornickel for $1.5 billion in December 2012. Abramovich, Potanin and Deripaska then agreed to form a board with Potanin and Deripaska nominating 4 members every plus one for Abramovich. The deal, set to final for a decade (it expired on January 1, 2023), additionally stored Potanin as Nornickel’s CEO and committed Nornickel to a brand new dividend coverage.

However the deal got here beneath pressure in 2018, when Potanin tried to purchase a part of Abramovich’s shares in Nornickel—a transfer challenged by Rusal and halted by a London court docket in June 2018. Abramovich later sold some of his stake to Potanin in early 2019. By August 2020 Potanin was calling the settlement a “relic of the previous” in an interview with Reuters.

Issues appeared to have calmed down by April 2021, when Rusal stated it was “satisfied” with a choice by Nornickel’s board to purchase again shares value $2 billion. It was round that very same time, the U.S. indictment alleges, that Deripaska had begun to hunt an investigation into his rival oligarch within the spring of 2021. For his half, Potanin started expanding his empire after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine final February, re-purchasing Russian banking group Rosbank from French agency Société Générale final April and snapping up Russian financial institution Tinkoff Financial institution two weeks later, each for undisclosed quantities.

As not too long ago as final July, Potanin was publicly musing about a possible $60 billion merger between Rusal and Nornickel, months earlier than the January 1, 2023 expiration date of the 2012 settlement. But it surely turned a non-starter after Potanin was sanctioned by the U.S. on December 15, 2022. Deripaska had already been sanctioned by the U.S. in April 2018. (Each males have additionally been sanctioned by the U.K., however the EU has solely sanctioned Deripaska whereas leaving Potanin untouched—doubtlessly attributable to Europe’s dependence on Nornickel’s nickel and palladium exports.)

The most recent salvo within the Deripaska-Potanin battle got here on October 21, when Rusal filed a lawsuit in London’s Excessive Courtroom towards Potanin. “Rusal’s claims are based mostly on Mr. Potanin’s failure to meet his duties as Norilsk Nickel’s managing associate and CEO,” Rusal mentioned in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “Underneath the administration of Mr. Potanin, Norilsk Nickel misplaced various belongings that performed a key position in [the] group’s actions. This resulted in Norilsk Nickel and its shareholders struggling vital losses.” (Potanin owns 37% of Nornickel by way of his funding holding firm Interros, whereas Deripaska has a forty five% stake in publicly traded En+ Group, which in flip owns 26% of Nornickel plus 57% of Rusal.)

Within the assertion, Rusal additionally claimed that it “constantly tried to enter in constructive dialogue with Mr. Potanin for an out-of-court settlement” however “these makes an attempt have been unsuccessful.”

Whether or not that “constructive dialogue” contains Deripaska’s alleged unlawful investigation of Potanin’s belongings or not, the conflict between the 2 oligarchs exhibits no indicators of fading away.

Extra reporting by Elena Berezanskaya.