Oil Tycoon Charged for Hiding Second Family Faces Jail Over Unpaid Legal Fees in Multi‑Million Pound Divorce

In a courtroom drama oozing with betrayal, opulence, and contempt, Mikhail Kroupeev, a Russian oil magnate and chairman of energy giant Gulfsands, stands accused of deliberately flouting court orders during a bitter, multi-million-pound divorce from his wife of 36 years, Elena Kroupeeva.

Elena, discovering in 2023 that her husband had maintained a second family in Russia for over two decades, launched legal proceedings that may now rank among the costliest divorce cases in British history. She is asking the High Court to jail her husband for contempt after he refused to pay court-ordered maintenance and legal fees totalling over £800,000, including £195,789 earmarked specifically for her legal team.

In a pointed statement to the court, her barrister, Justin Warshaw KC, said Kroupeev treats legal orders “as if they are suggestions,” branding his attitude a game “he clearly intends to cheat.”

The High Court’s Mr Justice Harrison agreed finding the tycoon guilty of contempt of court for multiple breaches, including hiding assets, delaying business valuations, and failing to disclose his luxury watch collection. Sentencing was adjourned, but Kroupeev has been ordered to appear in person next week. selfie Jesssi

Meanwhile, Kroupeev’s legal team has denied allegations of a secret family, calling them irrelevant. But the damage, financial and emotional seems far from contained.

Elena’s legal team paints a portrait of obscene extravagance: a £15 million mansion in St John’s Wood, a £22.5 million property empire, $200,000 holidays to Mustique, skiing in Val D’Isère, private jets for the family dogs, and globe-trotting adventures from Iceland to Argentina.

She insists her husband is using offshore tax havens in Guernsey and the Seychelles to conceal the true extent of his oil fortune, suspected to run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

In return, he offered her a £300,000 lump sum and two properties an offer she sees as insulting, especially given his luxurious lifestyle and the scale of their shared wealth.

The couple, who met in Russia in 1988 and moved to the UK in 1993, raised two children now aged 20 and 28 both of whom were privately schooled in London. Shockingly, so was the child from Kroupeev’s alleged second relationship, whom he also sent to the same elite school, further fueling Elena’s claims of deception.