2007-2013: Sometime in 2007, Manafort starts working for Deripaska who is the Richest Man in Russia. In 2007, Manafort and his partners established a private equity fund that would acquire Ukrainian firms and merge them into larger national entities. Manafort and his partners collected over $7 million in fees for managing this fund from firms controlled by Deripaska, according to a 2014 petition filed in the Cayman Islands, filed by Deripaska’s lawyers. In 2008, Deripaska transferred $18.9 million to the fund so that it could purchase Black Sea Cable. From 2013 Deripaska court documents, Manafort apparently stole the money rather than buy the company.
