The disappearance of a Russian-born British media magnate from his Baltic villa has left police puzzling over whether they are investigating murder, abduction, or a clever vanishing act.

The party-loving film producer Leonid Rozhetskin, wanted in his native Russia for fraud, has not been seen for more than a week. His Latvian holiday home near Riga bears bloodstains and signs of a struggle.

The man behind the free, London-based financial newspaper City AM claimed to have made dangerous enemies as well as glamorous friends on his way to becoming an international media mogul. His parties were attended by the likes of the fashion designer Domenico Dolce and John Lennon’s musician son Julian. His latest film is Steve Coogan’s acclaimed comedy Hamlet 2, and his next production is a Russian mafia saga, Three Wolves.

According to Russian reports, Mr Rozhetskin, a naturalised American and the founding shareholder of City AM, had said that his life had been menaced by elements within the telecommunications industry. A multimillion-dollar sum that he owed from an old business transaction is reported to be due soon.

He is an enigmatic figure, with homes in Latvia and Los Angeles and also a bungalow in an area of Kilmarnock called Moscow. He was reported missing on March 16 by a man who visited his £1 million home in the Latvian resort of Jurmala. His six-bedroom house showed signs of violence. Desks and a sofa had been overturned and bloodstains were found on the floor.

Mr Rozhetskin, 41, is reported to have been at the Dorchester in London a few days earlier and had flown to Latvia on his private plane for the weekend. The Latvian newspaper Telegraf has quoted a taxi driver who was called to the house at 2.30am that morning. Two young men asked to be driven the ten miles into Riga, where they were dropped outside a gay club called XXL.

The taxi driver remembered that the lights were still on in the house and thought that there had appeared to be someone left inside. The puzzle grew as Mr Rozhetskin’s private aircraft left Latvia on Sunday, apparently in great haste and possibly leaving crew behind. Reportedly the aircraft flew to Zurich with no passengers on board.

The police are reported to be working on three theories: abduction, domestic violence or staged disappearance. “Nothing good has happened there,” Aldis Lieljuksis, the Latvian State Police chief, told a state radio station. But Mareks Seglins, the Interior Minister, said: “If there’s no body, then there’s no factual proof of \.”

According to Mr Rozhetskin’s Myspace profile, he was born on August 4, 1966, in what was then Leningrad. His father was imprisoned by the Soviet authorities on what the family claimed were trumped-up charges. Mr Rozhetskin emigrated to the US in 1980 and went to high school in New York. He now styles himself as an “international financier and lawyer credited with bringing significant financial and legal advances to modern Russia”.

Although his father died in jail in 1986, Mr Rozhetskin returned to Russia as one of the bright young émigrés seeking to make their fortune in post-communist Moscow. With his bank Renaissance Capital, the precocious Harvard graduate joined the first clutch of oligarchs. At one stage he was an adviser to George Soros on Russian investments. He went on to become a leading executive of the mining giant Norilsk Nickel.

His dealings in the telecoms industry have made him a wanted man. The Russian prosecutor’s office alleges that, through a complicated financial transaction, he stole a large sum of money from a Russian telecommunications company, Ipoc, which had been meant for buying shares.

The Moscow-based IT news website CNews noted that Mr Rozhetskin’s disappearance came soon after he had signed a settlement with a group of St Petersburg communication operators whom he once accused of menaces. That claim was always strongly denied and has been rejected by an international arbitrator.

Two years ago Russian prosecutors issued a warrant for Mr Rozhetskin’s arrest for an alleged $40 million (£20 million) fraud. CNews has also reported that he faces bills for $25 million that become due in 2009.

Mr Rozhetskin’s annual charity party at a villa on the French Riviera may have attracted a Duran Duran star and a former Miss Russia, but he sometimes cuts an isolated figure. His only friend on MySpace is the Tampa Bay Toastmasters club. Although he says that he is married and a proud parent, there is no mention of his wife, Natalya Belova, a former model.

Cold wars

— Businessmen, politicians and journalists have been victims of contract killings since Russia swapped Soviet communism for a capitalist free-for-all

— The most famous hitman was Alexander Solonik, a former gravedigger known as Alexander the Great or “Superkiller”, who was reputed to shoot using both hands. He claimed to demand $50,000 for a hit

— The journalists Anna Politkovskaya, who highlighted Russian brutality in Chechnya, and Paul Klebnikov, who exposed mafia power in the business world, were both murdered in Moscow

— The battle for control of privatised natural resources was played out between rival gangs of murderous thugs leading to what became known as the “aluminium wars”. Smelter managers, metals traders and reporters were killed

— The graveyard in Yekaterinburg is known for its expensive tombs bearing flattering images of young mafia bosses who died in mob clashes during the 1990s

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