Leonid Rozhetskin: International man of mystery

Even before he went missing, Leonid Rozhetskin was an international man of mystery. Flamboyant, certainly, and highly visible at the lavish parties he threw, but always on the move. His disappearance a fortnight ago left police trying to pick up an astonishingly complicated trail of homes, business and clues scattered across 11 time zones. Most bizarrely of all, they include a boarded-up bungalow in Kilmarnock, in a hamlet called, of all things, Moscow.

Mr Rozhetskin was a Russian. Or an American. Or both. He was in the law, or mining, or venture capital, or mobile phones, or all of them (his investments also include the free London business paper City AM). He was murdered, or kidnapped, or went into hiding. He lived – or lives – in Los Angeles, or London, or Moscow, or Riga. Or in a £40,000 semi-detached bungalow in East Ayrshire, at an address where it was reported last week that the name of Leonid Rozhetskin appeared on the electoral register.

"It seemed to me that the windows had been covered for a long time, to stop people from looking inside," said a reporter who went to look. "Although the place seemed like it was abandoned, there was no mail on the doormat, which suggests that people had been going in and out."

Do they include Mr Rozhetskin? Latvian police would love to know. They told The Independent on Sunday yesterday that they had approached Scotland Yard for help in tracing the 41-year-old. He stayed in London, at the Dorchester Hotel, before flying to the resort of Jurmala in Latvia by private jet on 15 March.

The last people said to have seen him alive were two men picked up from his £1m mansion at around 2.30am on 16 March. A taxi driver said he drove them to Riga's biggest gay club, called XXL. Mr Rozhetskin was married, to the model Natalya Belova, and had a three-year-old son, but there has been speculation about his sexuality. Lights were on in the house when the taxi driver left, and the owner's SUV was parked in the driveway. Latvian police have questioned the two men, but do not regard them as suspects. Their identities have not been revealed.

The disappearance was reported later that morning, by an associate who turned up for a meeting only to find the mansion in disarray, with sofas upturned and blood on the carpet. Tests on the blood confirmed, a few days ago, that it belonged to Mr Rozhetskin.

A criminal investigation was launched after his car was found abandoned on 17 March, a few kilometres from his home, also with traces of blood. Mysteriously, his private jet left Latvia that day, without him on board, and, according to various reports, bound for one of Zurich, Geneva or Vienna. It may also have left some of the crew behind, flying with just the two pilots.

Mr Rozhetskin was a classic "repat" – one of the hordes of Russian émigrés to the West who returned to their homeland in the 1990s to use their language skills and Western educations to launch successful business careers. The Harvard-educated lawyer first set up a law firm in the Russian capital, then became involved with investment banks, venture capital and the vast mining conglomerate Norilsk Nickel.

A critic of President Putin, he was best known in Russia for a long-running scrap over the ownership of MegaFon, a major mobile phone provider. He was accused by Russian authorities in 2006 of a £20m fraud, following trials in Switzerland, Bermuda and the US. At the height of the dispute, he was said to travel with bodyguards – but acquaintances said he had put the dispute behind him and had not visited Russia for several years. Lately, he had been more active in the West, with investments such as his stake in City AM.

Lawson Muncaster, managing director of City AM, said: "I've met Leonid about five times in my life, at board meetings." He described the missing man as "a very sharp cookie" who was "very open, charming, and flamboyant". So what did Mr Muncaster think had happened? "I just don't know, I have not got a clue."

Was it an old Russian business partner settling a score? Could the security services be involved? Was it linked to his private life? Did Mr Rozhetskin fake his own death in an attempt to evade enemies? It has even been suggested that the whole affair is a cunning stunt to raise publicity for a new film, Three Wolves, based on the Russian mafia. The film is being made by L+E Productions, which Mr Rozhetskin started last year with Eric Eisner, son of a former Walt Disney CEO.

Friends and acquaintances say they have no information on his whereabouts. Reliable information on the case is hard to come by. Many reports quote personal information from a MySpace page apparently belonging to Mr Rozhetskin. But the last entry is registered as 19 March – either he logged in three days after his disappearance, or the page is a fake.

Before he vanished, he would organise glamorous parties on the French Riviera. The annual Bal des Fleurs was held at the lavish Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild at Cap-Ferrat. Glitterati from the world of Russian business and fashion attended, as well as designer Domenico Dolce and supermodel Victoria Silvstedt.

"It's very sad," said Julia Evdokimova, a Russian supplier of luxury wines who provided the drinks for Bal des Fleurs. "That's all I can say."

The Latvian police initially said they contacted Scotland Yard for help in investigating possible links to the murder, by radiation poisoning, of Alexander Litvinenko. But on Friday, a spokeswoman said they had been told not to give out any more information.

While the case appears to have all the ingredients of a Cold War thriller – disappearance, secret services, models – the trail also leads to that small hamlet in Scotland called Moscow. It has been known by that name since 1812, when Napoleon's retreat from the Russian capital took place far away. The stream running through the village was also renamed, presumably ironically, as the Volga. Today Moscow has 118 inhabitants.

"The neighbours told me they hadn't seen any Russians around, and that the bungalow was rented out by a Scottish couple who were currently renovating it," said Ian Russell of the Kilmarnock Standard. But the windows were obscured.

When shown a photograph of Mr Rozhetskin, no one in the village remembered seeing him. Despite reports, the IoS can find no trace of his being listed at that address on recent electoral registers. But Mr Russell reported that in yet another bizarre twist, one neighbour claimed her ex-husband's best friend had worked for the KGB in Moscow.

Despite apparently having been asked for help, a spokesman at New Scotland Yard said: "It's not a matter for us. This is a foreign national who's disappeared abroad, so we're not going to say anything on it at this time."

Kilmarnock's Finest

Kirsty Wark
Journalist and TV presenter, best known for fronting the BBC's 'Newsnight' and 'Newsnight Review'.

Sir John Boyd Orr
Politician, biologist and Noble Peace Prize winner for his scientific research into nutrition and for his work with the UN.

William McIlvanney
Acclaimed crime writer, novelist and poet. His works include 'Docherty', 'The Big Man' and 'Laidlaw'.

Adrian McCallum
Professional wrestler known as 'Lionheart'.

William and John Sloane
Founders of the famous furniture and rug store W&J Sloane in New York City.

Margaret McDowall
Swimmer who won a silver medal at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952.

Colin Mochrie
Scottish-Canadian comedian of 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' fame.