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Mystery death of Russian businessman now examined by Major Crimes Unit

The Telegraph

An investigation into the sudden death of a Russian supergrass in Surrey is now being reviewed by specialist detectives amid mounting concern that he could have been murdered.

Alexander Perepilichnyy’s, 44, who moved to Britain three years ago after falling out with a Moscow crime syndicate, was found dead outside his mansion on an exclusive private estate near Weybridge last month.

His death has so far been described as “unexplained” and Surrey police initially stated that it was not being treated as suspicious.

But after it emerged that Mr Perepilichnyy’s was co-operating with the Swiss authorities in a major corruption investigation linked to a string of other deaths, police chiefs ordered that the case be passed to force’s Major Crimes Unit.

Police sources said the unit, which investigates complex murder cases, would be now taking a fresh look at the circumstances of Mr Perepilichnyy’s death.

Detectives will speak to his friends and business associates in a renewed effort to establish how a 44-year-old man, who was apparently in good health, came to suddenly collapse and die.

One theory being explored is that he could have been poisoned in a similar fashion to Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent who died in London in 2006 after being contaminated with radioactive Polonium 210.