Mystery as Russia’s ‘Scarface Oligarch’ who sold Meghan and Harry their £12m Montecito mansion dies after blasting Putin
A RUSSIAN billionaire who sold Harry and Meghan their US home in Montecito for £12 million has died in Moscow aged just 56, local media reports.
Sergey Grishin, known as the ‘Scarface Oligarch’, passed away on Monday in a Moscow hospital after a serious illness, it is understood.
His cause of death was given as “circulatory problems in his brain” which led to sepsis.
After slamming President Putin’s regime, he previously called on then-president Donald Trump to grant him a US passport saying: “I want to be safe.
“I am kind of under fire right now by the criminal world of Russia…by the top government officials of Russia, too.”
However, he spent the last part of his life in Russia, after flogging his American mansion to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Grishin had purchased the mansion – known as the Chateau of Riven Rock with a seven-acre site, pool, tennis court, guest quarters and stunning main house – in 2009.
The royal couple then swapped Los Angeles for nearby Montecito, Santa Barbara, home to A-listers such as Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres.
His nickname Scarface was because he had owned another mansion where the 1983 Al Pacino movie was filmed.
He was the former co-owner of RosEvroBank, and sold the seven-bedroom home to the Sussexes in 2020.
The Russian tycoon also boasted he had brought the Russian bank system to its knees in the 1990s by committing a $60bn fraud.
He called it “the largest bank fraud scheme ever”, orchestrating a $60 billion heist from the Russian Central Bank.
Another one of his scams involved the use of invisible ink on cheques.
He was also accused of making extreme threats to women in his life.
One ex-lover Ekaterina Loginova questioned how much Harry and Meghan knew about the previous owner of their Californian mansion.
The Russian model said: “I like Meghan and Harry – they do not deserve any such problems.
“I was just shocked they did not check the seller before the transaction.”
She heard him make threats to estranged wife Anna Fedoseeva during their messy divorce.
It comes after Harry and Meghan’s daughter Lilibet was christened at an intimate ceremony at the home in California last week.
Around 25 guests gathered to celebrate the occasion on March 3 – and members of the Royal Family were invited but chose not to go, PEOPLE reports.
The Sussexes allegedly asked King Charles, Camilla, Prince William and Kate to be there but they declined the offer, according to a source.
Instead, the duke and duchess were joined by three-year-old son Archie, Meghan‘s mum Doria Ragland, Lili‘s godfather Tyler Perry and between 20 and 30 close friends.
They are said to have enjoyed an afternoon of food and dancing following the ceremony.