Russia asks Interpol to put Browder on wanted list

* Little chance of extradition from UK, ministry concedes

* Hermitage sceptical about Russian move

By Dmitry Zhdannikov

MOSCOW, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Russia has asked Interpol to put William Browder, once one of Russia's largest foreign investors, on an international wanted list as part of a probe into a $16.9 million tax evasion, the interior ministry said on Friday.

Browder, who is chief executive of Hermitage Capital Management, was stopped at a Moscow airport in 2005 and deported on national security grounds.

Browder has repeatedly accused top Russian government officials, judges, security officials and private citizens of stealing large sums from his fund and the case against him has spooked many international investors and raised concern about Russia's investment climate.

Russia's Interior Ministry had put Browder on the wanted list and the investigator in his case could present charges next week, said a ministry spokeswoman, Irina Dudukina.

The ministry may then request a court to issue an arrest warrant for Browder, she said, but conceded it was unlikely he would be sent to Russia from Britain, where he now lives.

"The chances that he will be extradited to Russia are very small since Great Britain is refusing to extradite even our own citizens," she said.

A spokesman for Hermitage said the Interior Ministry had often failed to follow its public statements of intent and he would not comment on hypothetical steps.

Browder had been already put on a search list in April 2008 and nothing further happened after a flurry of dramatic announcements at that time, said the Hermitage spokesman.

"The whole purpose of this activity is to try to take attention away from the fact that certain Interior Ministry officials have been involved in a theft of $230 million from the Russian state," the spokesman said.

Browder hit the headlines in 2005 when he was barred from Russia on national security grounds.

Last November Russian police arrested a tax adviser to Hermitage Capital Management.

At the time, Browder said Moscow-based law firm Firestone Duncan, which acts for Hermitage, was raided by Interior Ministry tax police and one of the firm's legal and accountancy advisers, Sergei Magnitsky, had been arrested.

In July this year Hermitage Capital Management won the right to subpoena records of major U.S. banks to help track $230 million that it claims was stolen by Russian officials and laundered through New York, according to U.S. court documents.

The U.S. court filing said Russian officials and private citizens acted in a conspiracy to "hijack" three investment companies owned by the Hermitage Fund.

The court filings said Russia's Interior Ministry raided company offices in 2007 and stole documents that allowed them to install new executives.

The new executives forged contracts that allowed them to create nearly $1 billion in liabilities, which cleared the way for them to apply for the $230 million tax refund, the filings said.

The refund request was granted and the money was transferred to two small Russian banks, the court filings said. (Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Charles Dick)