Billionaire Putin crony Igor Kudryakov, 64, found dead at Moscow apartment in latest high profile death

RUSSIAN billionaire Igor Kudryakov has been found dead at his Moscow apartment.

The 64-year-old oligarch is the latest of Vladimir Putin's cronies to die after a string of other high-profile deaths.

Kudryakov founded delivery service Service 77 - distributing food and other goods in Russia's capital.

He went on to serve as the first deputy head of the department of the State Housing Inspectorate of the Moscow Region.

According to reports, Kudryakov had been battling cancer.

An emergency services spokesman told news agency: "Igor Kudryakov was found dead in his apartment on Kudrinskaya Square in the Presnensky district of Moscow.

"According to preliminary data, the cause of the businessman's death was an oncological disease."

It follows the deaths of dozens high profile Russians have died since Putin invaded Ukraine.

And experts believe the deaths of at least 39 people - ranging from oligarchs to scientists - could show the shadowy and bloodstained hand of the Kremlin.

Many of the movers and shakers died in odd circumstances, such as sudden "suicides" and falls from windows.

It has led Jon Sweet, a retired US Army Military Intelligence Officer, to describe Putin as running a "modern-day FSB version of Murder Inc."

"Anyone seen as a potential threat seems to have an attraction to an open window," Sweet told The Sun.

Earlier this month, a chief Russian prosecutor was found dead in a river - but is understood to have not drowned.

Andrey Fomin was swimming in the Volga, Europe's longest river, when he suddenly died.

The 57-year-old was the chief prosecutor of Chuvashia, a region about 420 miles east of Moscow, and was an ardent supporter of despot Putin.

Meanwhile, a Russian billionaire who sold Harry and Meghan their US home in Montecito for £12 million died in Moscow aged just 56 in March.

That same month, Russian scientist Andrey Botikov - who created the "Sputnik V" vaccine - was strangled with a belt in his apartment.