MOSCOW, April 1 – RAPSI. Fugitive Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky was in line for a $300 million cash bonanza shortly before his death, The Sunday Times reported, citing its sources.

An early post-mortem revealed that the exiled Russian oligarch likely died by hanging in the bathroom of his home in Ascot in southern England last weekend. A variety of rumors have attributed his death to everything from suicide to homicide to natural causes. He is believed by some to have taken his own life because of financial problems that came to a head with his High Court defeat to another Russian tycoon, Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea football club. 

But leaked emails and police documents indicate that an investment company which controlled three of his offshore trusts, was due to liquidate assets “between October 2012 and March 2013 with the ultimate aim of providing him with a fund in the region of some $300m,” the paper said.

Berezovsky, an avowed Kremlin foe, had lived in self-imposed exiled Britain since 2000 and was pursued for extradition by authorities in Russia for prosecution over alleged fraud.

In July 2011 Berezovsky’s ex-wife, 53-year-old Galina Besharova, won a divorce settlement that British media dubbed the English legal system's largest ever divorce payout, rumored to be worth up to 220 million pounds sterling (over $330 million).

In January, the judge presiding over another case involving Berezovsky issued a ruling describing the businessman as “a man under financial pressure.”