Alexander Lebedev, the owner of the Independent titles and the London Evening Standard, has suffered once more at the hands of the Russian authorities, reported the Mail on Sunday.
His Moscow-based National Reserve Bank was searched by armed police and officials from the powerful Russian Investigative Committee, and documents were taken away.
The bank has been accused of evading about £6.2m in tax, but Lebedev says the whole sum in dispute has been paid, suggesting that the raid was a personal attack on him by the authorities.
"Apparently, they decided to increase the pressure," Lebedev is quoted in the Mail on Sunday as saying. His friends believe he has been targeted for political reasons because of his co-ownership of the independent Russian investigative newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.
The paper also quotes a spokesman for the investigation as saying: "The bank leadership committed tax evasion amounting to over 380m roubles in 2011. The bank's assets worth the unpaid taxes have been frozen."
Lebedev has been dogged in recent years by official hostility from Vladimir Putin's administration. His bank was raided in 2010 and again in 2012 by Russian security service agents.
Source: Mail on Sunday
