London Teen Lived a Double Life as a Fake Russian Heir Before Mysterious Thames Death

In November 2019, a London-based teenager, Zac Brettler, fell to his death in the River Thames from the fifth floor of a luxury apartment. The police said the death was a suicide, but the Brettler family continues to seek answers about their son’s fate, considering the complexity of the case.

Zac was only 19 at the time of his death. In the months leading up to the tragedy, his family began noticing his changed behavior. The victim lived with his upper-middle-class Jewish parents in Maida Vale. Zac was an intelligent and friendly child. But something changed in him as a teenager.

He became obsessed with a luxurious lifestyle, started showing violent tendencies, and began admiring people like Russian President Vladimir Putin and disgraced stockbroker Jordan Belfort. His social circle changed, too. In hopes of making a fortune, Zac started mingling with extremely wealthy people known for their lavish lifestyles.

What he did not realize was that these high-net-worth individuals were more dangerous than he imagined. To fit into their circle, Zac lied to them that he was the son of a Russian oligarch who was waiting for his inheritance worth £205 million. The teenager hid his real identity and started going by the name Zac IIsmailov.

He also told his social circle that he resided at London’s most expensive apartment building, the One Hyde Park in Knightsbridge. His way of talking, his accent, and his whole personality changed over time. Soon, he had enough fluency in Russian to fool even natives.

His urge to make it big and his display of a luxurious lifestyle brought him into contact with Akbar Shamji, a crypto investor who had previously been involved in some questionable deals. Meanwhile, the two also started meeting gangster Verinder Sharma, aka Indian Dave. Both Indian Dave and Shamji believed Zac's story about his inheritance and hoped to benefit from his money.

Then came the fateful night of November 29, 2019. Zac was at a luxurious Riverwalk apartment building with Indian Dave and Shamji. The building was situated along the Thames, opposite the MI6 headquarters. At 2:24 a.m., the surveillance cameras at the MI6 building captured a grainy footage of Zac plummeting into the river.

Around 7:30 a.m., a man noticed his body on the shore and alerted the authorities. The Metropolitan police investigated the case and ruled it a suicide. But according to the victim’s family, investigators showed little interest in the case and ignored key clues that could have painted a different picture.

Indian Dave was known for threatening people by hanging them over the edge of a balcony. Secondly, he had sent text messages to Shamji that morning, writing, “I’m thinking f*** this little kid. He’s not allowed to run away now.” It is likely that Zac’s cover was blown before his death, and Indian Dave got to know that he was not actually the son of a deceased Russian oligarch.

Zac’s family has also alleged that the investigators did not test the blood-coloured stains seen at the crime scene. The case suffered another blow when Indian Dave was found dead in the same apartment from an overdose in 2020. On the other hand, Shamji was never charged in the case.

Zac’s death has now come to the spotlight again with the release of Patrick Radden Keefe’s book, London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth. As the title of the book suggests, the family continues to search for answers about Zac’s mysterious death.