Mikhail Prokhorov. Image via Wikipedia  Mikhail Prokhorov is the 3rd richest person in Russia, with an $18 billion fortune and interests ranging from mining and metals to nanotechnology and publishing. In the U.S., he’s best known as the owner of the New Jersey Nets: he bought the team in 2009 and has been trying to turn it around ever since.  On Monday, though, he announced a new and markedly more risky venture. He plans to lead pro-business political party Right Cause, he told Russian newswire RIA Novosti. Why is that risky? Well, the last Russian billionaire to involve himself in the country’s politics was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and he’s been languishing in a Siberian prison for the past eight years.  Khodorkovsky was once the richest person in Russia, worth $15 billion, until his arrest on fraud and theft charges in October 2003. The accusation: his Menatep group failed to invest $280 million, which it had promised in return for a 20% stake in the 1994 privatization of a fertilizer manufacturer. Khodorkovsky has always denied the charges, claiming that the Kremlin persecuted him for criticizing the Putin administration. As my colleague Luisa Kroll wrote recently, Khodorkovsky and his business partner were supposed to be released this year but instead were convicted a second time in December for embezzlement and money laundering, adding six more years onto their sentence.  This is not to say that Prokhorov is destined to follow in the footsteps of his fellow oligarch. As the BBC rightly points out, the Nets owner is not positioning himself as a critic of the Kremlin. On the contrary, Right Cause was set up by the Kremlin in 2008, although it has been described as a puppet opposition. What is for sure: Right Cause will be supporting incumbent President Dmitry Medvedev in Russia’s 2012 elections, not Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is widely tipped to run. Whether Prokhorov himself will come out strongly in favor of Medvedev remains to be seen.  Follow me on Twitter: @Clare_OC
Russia's third richest man has announced plans to enter his country's politics. The last time a billionaire oligarch did that, he ended up behind bars, charged with fraud and tax evasion.