Ziya 'Ziyaudi' Yusupovich Bazhayev (July 11, 1960 — March 9, 2000) was a prominent Russian businessman of Chechen origin specializing in oil trading. During the 1990s, he was president of Sidanko, the Swiss company Lia Oil from 1992 to 1995, the state unitary oil company in war-torn Chechnya, Southern Oil Company (YUNCO) and the oil company Alliance Group , which he founded in April 1998. With numerous personnel from Sidanko, Alliance gained control of the Khabarovsk Refinery at Khabarovsk, which previously was owned by Sidanko, and, a year later, gained control of the Kherson Refinery in Ukraine. He died in Moscow during a crash of a Yakovlev Yak-40 aircraft shortly after takeoff on March 9, 2000, together with a Russian journalist Artyom Borovik. Bazhayev's death is mentioned in many Nigerian 419 scam e-mails.

Literature