captioning funded by cbs and ford-- built for the road ahead. >> take-your-breath-away type explosions. shake-your-body-to-the-core explosions. >> pelley: mike williams was the chief electronics technician onboard the "deepwater horizon," one of the last to escape the inferno after the blowout in the gulf. he believes a series of mishaps may have led to the catastrophe. and his story has been critical to the investigation, a story he first told on "60 minutes." all the things that they told us could never happen happened.

>> pelley: what he's saying is very important to this investigation, you believe. >> it is. >> pelley: who's responsible? >> b.p. >> kroft: do you know how much money you have? >> no. >> kroft: does $17 billion sound about right? he is the richest man in russia, who just bought the worst team in the n.b.a. but as you'll see, he's not like any other owner of a big-time american sports franchise. he's an adrenaline junky with a few unusual toys. and he owes some of his fame and fortune to a bevy of party girls. >> frankly speaking, i like women. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm byron pitts. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories and andy rooney tonight on "60 minutes." if you fight to sleep in the middle of the night,

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>> pelley: the gusher has stopped, but we still don't know exactly what set off the biggest offshore oil spill in history. investigations continue, and critical revelations about the b.p. disaster are coming from one of the last crewmen to escape the "deepwater horizon" drilling rig. mike williams first told his story on "60 minutes" in may. since that broadcast, he's become a key witness in the federal investigation. williams says the blowout was the result of a series of mishaps that started weeks before. the night of the disaster, he was in his workshop when the

engines that power the rig's generators began to run wild. it was the first sign that explosive gas was enveloping the "deepwater horizon." >> mike williams: i hear the engines revving. the lights are glowing. i'm hearing the alarms. i mean, they're, they're at a constant state now. it's just, "beep, beep, beep, beep, beep." it doesn't stop. but even that's starting to get drowned out by the sound of the engine increasing in speed. and my lights get so incredibly bright that they physically explode. i'm pushing my way back from the desk when my computer monitor exploded. >> pelley: this is the "deepwater horizon" in the hours before its destruction the night of april 20. ironically, the end was coming only months after the rig's greatest achievement. mike williams was the chief electronics technician in charge of the rig's computers and electrical systems, and seven months before, he'd helped the crew drill the deepest oil well in history, 35,000 feet.

>> williams: it was special. there's no way around it. everyone was talking about it. the congratulations that were flowing around, it just... it made you feel proud to work there. >> pelley: williams worked for the owner, transocean, the largest offshore drilling company. like its sister rigs, the "deepwater horizon" cost $350 million, rose 378 feet from bottom to top. both advanced and safe, none of her 126 crew had been seriously injured in seven years. the safety record was remarkable, because offshore drilling today pushes technology with challenges matched only by the space program. "deepwater horizon" was in 5,000 feet of water, and would drill another 13,000 feet, a total of three and a half miles. the oil and gas down there are under enormous pressure, and the

key to keeping that pressure under control is this fluid that drillers call "mud." mud is a manmade drilling fluid that's pumped down the well and back up the sides in continuous circulation. the sheer weight of this fluid keeps the oil and gas down and the well under control. the tension in every drilling operation is between doing things safely and doing them fast. time is money, and this job was costing b.p. a million dollars a day. but williams says there was trouble from the start; getting to the oil was taking too long. how long did you expect it to take? >> williams: we were told 21 days. >> pelley: how long did it actually take? >> williams: we were at six weeks. >> pelley: with the schedule slipping, williams says a b.p. manager ordered a faster pace. >> williams: and he requested to the driller, "hey, let's bump it up. let's bump it up." and what he was talking about there is he's bumping up the rate of penetration, how fast the drill bit is going down.

>> pelley: williams says going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools and the drilling fluid called mud. >> williams: we actually got stuck. and we got stuck so bad, we had to send tools down into the drill pipe and sever the pipe. >> pelley: that well was abandoned. "deepwater horizon" had to drill a new route to the oil. it cost b.p. more than two weeks and millions of dollars. >> williams: we were informed of this during one of the safety meetings, that somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million was lost in bottom hole assembly and mud. and you always kind of knew that, in the back of your mind, when they start throwing these big numbers around, that there was going to be a push coming, you know? a push to pick up production and pick up the pace. >> pelley: there was pressure on the crew after this happened? >> williams: there's always pressure but, yes, the pressure was increased. >> pelley: but the trouble was just beginning. when drilling resumed, williams says there was an accident on the rig that has not been reported before.

he says, four weeks before the explosion, the rig's most vital piece of safety equipment was damaged. down near the seabed is the blowout preventer or b.o.p. it's used to seal the well shut, in order to test the pressure and integrity of the well. and in case of a blowout, it's the crew's only hope. a key component is a rubber gasket at the top called an annular, which can close tightly around the drill pipe. williams says that, during a test, they closed the gasket. but while it was shut tight, a crewman on deck accidentally nudged a joystick, applying hundreds of thousands of pounds of force and moving 15 feet of drill pipe through the closed blowout preventer. later, a man monitoring drilling fluid rising to the top made a troubling find. >> williams: he discovered chunks of rubber in the drilling fluid. he thought it was important enough to gather this double handful of chunks of rubber and

bring them into the driller shack. i recall asking the supervisor if this was out of the ordinary, and he says, "oh, it's... it's no big deal." and i thought, "how can it be not a big deal? there's chunks of our seal is now missing." >> pelley: and, williams says, he knew about another problem with the blowout preventer. the b.o.p. is operated from the surface by wires connected to two control pods; one is a back- up. williams says one pod lost some of its function weeks before. transocean tells us the b.o.p. was tested by remote control after these incidents and passed. but nearly a mile below, there was no way to know how much damage there was or why the pod seemed unreliable. in the hours before the disaster, "deepwater horizon's" work was nearly done. all that was left was to seal the well closed. the oil would be pumped out by another rig later.

williams says that, during a safety meeting, the manager for the rig owner, transocean, was explaining how they were going to close the well when the manager from b.p. interrupted. >> williams: i had the b.p. company man sitting directly beside me. and he literally perked up and said, "well, my process is different. and i think we're going to do it this way." and they kind of lined out how he thought it should go that day. so there was short of a chest- bumping kind of deal. the communication seemed to break down as to who was ultimately in charge. >> pelley: the day of the accident, b.p. flew several managers to the "deepwater horizon" for a ceremony to congratulate the crew for seven years without an injury. while they where there, a surge of explosive gas came flying up the well from three miles below. the rig's diesel engines, which power its electric generators, sucked in the gas and began to

run wild. >> williams: i'm hearing hissing. engines are over-revving. and then all of a sudden, all the lights in my shop just started getting brighter and brighter and brighter. and i knew then, we were... something bad was getting ready to happen. >> pelley: it was almost 10:00 at night, and directly under the "deepwater horizon" were four men in a fishing boat: albert andry, dustin king, ryan chaisson, and westley bourg. >> westley bourg: when i heard the gas coming out, i knew exactly what it was almost immediately. >> pelley: when the gas cloud was descending on you, what was that like? >> albert andry: it was scary. and when i looked at it, it burned my eyes. and i knew we had to get out of there. >> pelley: you could tell what it was? >> andry: i knew it was methane. >> pelley: on the rig, mike williams was reaching for a door to investigate the engine noise. >> williams: these are three- inch thick steel fire-rated doors with six stainless steel hinges supporting them on the frame. as i reach for the handle, i heard this awful hissing noise,

this whoosh, and at the height of the hiss, a huge explosion. the explosion literally rips the door from the hinges, hits... impacts me and takes me to the other side of the shop. and i'm up against a wall, when i finally come around, with a door on top of me. and i remember thinking to myself, "you know, this... this is it. i'm going to die right here." >> pelley: the men on the fishing boat had a camera. >> look at the water on fire! >> williams: i began to crawl across the floor. as i got to the next door, it exploded and took me-- the door- - and slid me about 35 feet backwards again and planted me up against another wall. at that point, i actually got angry. i was mad at the doors. i was mad that these fire doors

that are supposed to protect me are hurting me. and at that point, i made a decision-- "i'm going to get outside. i may die out there, but i'm going to get outside." so, i crawl across the grid work of the floor and make my way to that opening, where i see the light. i made it out the door and i thought to myself, "i've accomplished what i set out to accomplish. i made it outside. at least now i can breathe. i may die out here, but i can breathe." >> pelley: williams couldn't see. something was pouring into his eyes and that's when he noticed a gash in his forehead. >> williams: i didn't know if it was blood, i didn't know if it was brains, i didn't know if it was flesh. i didn't know what it was. i just knew there was... i was... i was in trouble. at that point, i grabbed a lifejacket. i was on the aft lifeboat deck; there were two functioning lifeboats at my disposal right there. but i knew i couldn't board them; i had responsibilities.

>> pelley: his responsibility was to report to the bridge, the rig's command center. >> williams: i'm hearing alarms. i'm hearing radio chatter, "may day! may day! may day! we've lost propulsion! we've lost power! we have a fire! man overboard on the starboard forward deck." >> multiple personnel in the water. anybody that can be saved, help would really be appreciated. >> pelley: williams says that, on the bridge, he watched them try to activate emergency systems. >> williams: the b.o.p. that was supposed to protect us and keep us from the blowout obviously had failed. and now, the emergency disconnect to get us away from this fuel source has failed. we have no communications to the b.o.p. >> situation on the "horizon"-- a lot of people jumping in the water, abandoning ship and life rafts. >> williams: and i see one of the lifeboats in the water, and it's motoring away from the vessel. i looked at the captain and asked him. i said, "what's going on?" he said, "i've given the order to abandon ship." >> pelley: every sunday, they had practiced lifeboat drills and the procedure for making sure that everyone was accounted

for. but in the panic, all that went to hell. the lifeboats were leaving. they're leaving without you? >> williams: they have left, without the captain and without knowing that they had everyone that had survived all this onboard. i've been left now by two lifeboats. and i look at the captain and i said, "what do we do now?" by now, the fire is not only on the derrick, it's starting to spread to the deck. at that point, there were several more explosions, large, intense explosions. >> pelley: what do they feel like, sound like? >> williams: it's just take- your-breath-away type explosions, shake-your-body-to- the-core explosions. take your vision away from the percussion of the explosions. >> pelley: about eight survivors were left on the rig, including williams, the captain, and a crewwoman named andrea. >> williams: i remember looking at andrea and seeing that look in her eyes of she had quit, she had given up.

i remember her saying, "i'm scared." and i said, "it's okay to be scared. i'm scared, too." she said, "what are we going to do?" i said, "we're going to burn up or we're going to jump." >> pelley: how far is it to the sea? >> williams: maybe 90 feet, 100 feet. it's a long ways. >> pelley: in the middle of the night, with blood in his eyes, fire at his back, and the sea ten stories below, williams made his choice. >> williams: i remember closing my eyes and saying a prayer, and asking god to tell my wife and my little girl that daddy did everything he could and if... if i survive this, it's for a reason. i made those three steps and i pushed off the end of the rig, and i fell for what seemed like forever. a lot of things go through your

mind. >> pelley: the rest of mike williams' story and a look at the company responsible for the disaster when we come back. >> mitchell: good evening. ken feinberg, who handled the 9/11 claim, takes over b.p.'s oil spill compensation fund tomorrow. the final set of new rules to protect credit card users took effect today. they curb penalty fees and interest rates. and the "expendables" wins the weekend box office again. i'm russ mitchell, cbs news. get my hands dirty... and try new things. so i asked my doctor if spiriva could help me breathe better. spiriva is the only once-daily inhaled maintenance treatment for both forms of copd...

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but there are foods that i had no idea had so much acid in them. my dentist said that the acid in fruit or fruit juice or fruit teas softens the enamel so that then it can potentially erode. once that enamel is gone, it's gone.

my dentist recommended that i use pronamel to help harden that enamel so that it's not brushed away. pronamel protects your teeth from acid erosion. i don't have to cut out the things that i love in my diet. i can have the best of both worlds with pronamel. >> pelley: wearing a life jacket, mike williams, the chief electronics technician aboard the "deepwater horizon," jumped feet first off the deck and away from the inferno.

he had witnessed key events before the disaster, but if he was going to tell anyone, he would have to survive a ten- story drop into the sea. >> williams: i went down way, way below the surface, obviously. and i... when i popped back up, i felt... i felt like, "okay, i've... i've made it." but i feel this god awful burning all over me. and i'm thinking, "am i on fire?" you know, i... i just don't know. so i start doing the only thing i know to do-- swim. i got to get away from this thing. i could tell i was floating in oil and grease and... and diesel fuel. i mean, it's just the smell. and i remember looking under the rig and seeing the water on fire. and i thought, "what have you done? you were dry and you weren't

covered in oil up there. now, you've jumped and you've made this, and you've landed in oil. the fire's going to come across the water, and you're going to burn up." and i thought, "you just got to swim harder." so i swam and i kicked, and i swam and i kicked, and i swam as hard as i could until i remember not feeling any more pain, and i didn't hear anything. and i thought, "well, i must have burned up, because i don't... i don't feel anything, i don't hear anything, i don't smell anything. i must be dead." and i remember a real faint voice of, "over here, over here." i thought, "what in the world is that?" and the next thing i know, he grabbed my life jacket and flipped me over into this small open bow boat. i didn't know who he was, i didn't know where he'd come from, i didn't care. i was now out of the water. >> pelley: his crewmate andrea had jumped into a life raft dangling from the rig, and then

jumped into the water. >> williams: and the next person we picked up was the girl. she was alive. >> pelley: the captain also survived a leap into the sea. and as the boat's pulling away, you look at "deepwater horizon" and what do you see? >> williams: she's on fire, bad fire. i think about who else may be on there. >> pelley: williams' survival may be critical to the investigation. we took williams' story to dr. bob bea, a professor of engineering at the university of california, berkeley, and a former chief engineer of shell oil. the white house has asked bea to help analyze the "deepwater horizon" accident. bea investigated the "columbia" space shuttle disaster for nasa, and the hurricane katrina disaster for the national science foundation. bea's voice never completely recovered from the weeks he spent in the flood in new orleans. but as the white house has found, he's among the nation's

best. he's investigated more than 20 offshore rig disasters. >> dr. bob bea: mr. williams comes forward with these very detailed elements from his viewpoint on a rig. that's a brave and intelligent man. >> pelley: what he's saying is very important to this investigation, you believe? >> bea: it is. >> pelley: what strikes professor bea is mike williams' description of the blowout preventer. williams says that, in a drilling accident four weeks before the explosion, the critical rubber gasket called an annular was damaged, and pieces of it started coming out of the well. according to williams, when parts of the annular start coming up onto the deck, someone from transocean says, "look, don't worry about it." what does that tell you? >> bea: "houston, i think we have a problem." >> pelley: here's why that's so important.

the annular is used to seal the well for pressure tests, and those tests determine whether dangerous gas is seeping in. so if the annular is damaged, if i understand you correctly, you can't do the pressure tests in a reliable way. >> bea: that's correct. you may get pressure test recordings, but because you're leaking pressure, they are not reliable. >> pelley: mike williams also told us that a backup control system to the blowout preventer called a pod had lost some of its functions. what is the standard operating procedure if you lose one of the control pods on the b.o.p.? >> bea: reestablish it, fix it. it's like losing one of your legs. >> pelley: the morning of the disaster, according to williams, there was an argument in front of all of the men on the ship between the transocean manager and the b.p. manager. do you know what that argument was about? >> bea: yes. >> pelley: what was it?

>> bea: who's boss? >> pelley: in finishing the well, the plan was to have a subcontractor, halliburton, place three concrete plugs, like corks, in the column. the transocean manager wanted to do this with the column full of heavy drilling fluid-- what drillers call "mud"-- to keep the pressure down below contained. but the b.p. manager wanted to begin to remove the mud before the last plug was set. that would reduce the pressure controlling the well before the plugs were finished. why would b.p. want to do that? >> bea: it expedites the subsequent steps. >> pelley: it's a matter of going faster. >> bea: faster, sure. >> pelley: who won the argument? >> bea: b.p. >> pelley: if the mud had been left in the column, would there have been a blowout? >> bea: it doesn't look like it. >> pelley: to do it b.p.'s way, they had to be absolutely certain that the first two plugs were keeping the pressure down. that life-or-death test was done using the blowout preventer, which had the damaged gasket.

investigators have also found the b.o.p. had a hydraulic leak and a weak battery. weeks before the disaster, they know that they are drilling into a very dangerous formation; the formation has told them that... >> bea: correct. >> pelley: ... and has cost them millions of dollars. and the blowout preventer is broken in a number of ways. >> bea: correct. >> pelley: what is the right thing to do at that point? >> bea: i express it to my students this way-- it's "stop. think. don't do something stupid." >> pelley: they didn't stop. as the drilling fluid was removed, relieving the downward pressure, the plugs failed. the blowout preventer didn't work. and 11 men were incinerated. 115 crewmembers survived. two days later, the "deepwater horizon" sank to the bottom.

this was just the latest disaster for a company that is the largest oil producer in the united states. b.p., once known as british petroleum, was found willfully negligent in a 2005 texas refinery explosion that killed 15 of its workers. b.p. was hit with $108 million in fines, the highest workplace safety fines in u.s. history. now, we have found there is new concern about another b.p. facility in the gulf. a former b.p. insider tells us this platform called "atlantis" is a greater threat than the "deepwater horizon." ken abbott has worked for shell and g.e., and in 2008, he was hired by b.p. to manage thousands of engineering drawings for the "atlantis" platform. >> ken abbott: they serve as blueprints, and also as a operator manual, if you will, on how to make this thing work and, more importantly, how to shut it down in an emergency.

>> pelley: but abbott says he found that 89% of those critical drawings had not been inspected and approved by b.p. engineers. even worse, he says 95% of the underwater welding plans had never been approved either. are these welding procedures supposed to be approved in the paperwork before the welds are done? >> abbott: absolutely. yeah. >> pelley: so they're... >> abbott: critical. >> pelley: critical? >> abbott: critical. >> pelley: abbott's charges are backed up by b.p. internal emails. in 2008, b.p. manager barry duff wrote that the lack of approved drawings could result in "catastrophic operator errors," and "currently, there are hundreds if not thousands of subsea documents that have never been finalized." duff called the practice, "fundamentally wrong." >> abbott: i've never seen this kind of attitude and... where, you know, safety doesn't seem to matter, and when... when you complain of a problem, like barry did and like i did, and try to fix it, you're just criticized and pushed aside.

>> pelley: ken abbott was laid off. he took his concerns to a consumer advocacy group called food and water watch. they're asking congress to investigate. >> abbott: the "atlantis" is still pumping away out there 200,000 barrels a day, and it will be four times that in a year or two when they put in all 16 wells. if something happens there, it will make the "deepwater horizon" look like a bubble in the water by comparison. >> pelley: in an email, b.p. told us the "atlantis" crew has all the documents it needs to run the platform safely. we also wanted b.p.'s perspective on the "deepwater horizon" disaster. the company scheduled an interview with its c.e.o., tony hayward. and then, they cancelled, saying no one at b.p. could sit down with "60 minutes" for this report. in other interviews, hayward has said this about transocean, the owner of the "deepwater horizon." >> tony hayward: the responsibility for safety on the drilling rig is with transocean.

it is their rig, their equipment, their people, their systems, their safety processes. >> pelley: when b.p.'s chief executive officer, tony hayward, says, "this is transocean's accident," what do you say? >> bea: i get sick. this kind of division in the industry is a killer. the industry is comprised of many organizations, and they all share the responsibility for successful operations. and to start placing-- we'll call it these "barriers"-- and pointing fingers at each other is totally destructive. >> pelley: who's responsible? >> bea: b.p. >> pelley: in early may, we went out to the gulf and found mats of thick floating oil. all told, about five million barrels of oil spewed into the gulf, the largest offshore spill in history. b.p. has spent $6 billion on

cleanup and compensation. but consider, that's the same amount that the company made in profits in just the first three months of this year. there are plenty of accusations to go around: that b.p. pressed for speed; halliburton's cement plugs failed; and transocean damaged the blowout preventer. through all the red flags, they pressed ahead. it was, after all, the "deepwater horizon," the world record holder, celebrated as among the safest in the fleet. >> williams: men lost their lives. i don't know how else to say it. all the things that they told us could never happen, happened. thank you for calling usa prime credit. my name is...peggy. what is problem, please? peggy? sure...well...suddenly it looks like i'm being charged

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>> kroft: of all the baubles that can be bought by billionaires, none is more intoxicating than a big-time sports franchise. it's the ultimate vanity investment, and some owners, like jerry jones of the dallas cowboys and the late george steinbrenner of the new york yankees, became just as famous as their star players. their ranks have included oil men, media moguls, garbage haulers, and a former show girl, not to mention a few egomaniacs and eccentrics. and now, the most exclusive club in america is getting a russian who owes some of his fame and fortune to a bevy of party girls. we first told you about him last march. his name is mikhail prokhorov, and at age 45, he's bought the

worst team in professional basketball, the new jersey nets. it's not often that you get a chance to sit down and talk to a rich russian, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity. >> mikhail prokhorov: for me, life and business, in particular, is a big game. >> kroft: if you could afford to do anything, would you do this? and hire a production company to put it to music? how about this? maybe not, but mikhail prokhorov is always looking for a challenge. you like danger? >> i like to control risk. >> kroft: "control risk." >> yeah. >> kroft: by now, you have probably guessed that russia's wealthiest citizen and largest individual taxpayer is an adrenaline junkie. he is also one of the country's most avid sportsmen, a former owner of a moscow basketball team that won the european championship. you will also notice that he is quite tall-- 6'8", to be exact-- as he trains here with his personal kick-boxing partner,

who is also the coach of the russian national team. >> prokhorov: i am addicted to sport. without sport, i feel bad. in this case, it's... it's some kind of drug. >> kroft: how much time do you spend working out every day? >> prokhorov: two hours. whatever happen, two hours, i have my workout. >> kroft: reduces stress? >> prokhorov: i like to be in stress. >> kroft: you like it? >> prokhorov: it's my competitive advantage. >> kroft: for someone who loves sports, stress and challenges, there is probably no better buy than the new jersey nets. for a few hundred million dollars, prokhorov recently bought 80% of the worst team in the national basketball association. 20 years ago, a russian would have never been allowed to buy an american sports franchise, but n.b.a. commissioner david stern says its just one more sign that the world is changing. >> david stern: america is really the only place where the question gets asked, "what about those foreigners?" this is a global sport.

our games are televised in 215 countries and 43 languages. so it was really a natural import of globalization. >> kroft: it also has something to do with the recession. a number of n.b.a. teams are struggling financially, and prokhorov has the one thing the league and the nets need most right now-- very deep pockets, which come from a far-flung financial empire. he flew us to siberia to check out russia's richest gold mining company. he owns almost half of it, plus a big chunk of the world's biggest aluminum producer. there is a media empire, plus two banks, an insurance company, and lots of real estate, including this house, which has a built-in swimming pool and, of course, a fitness center. that your boat? >> prokhorov: my small yacht. >> kroft: he showed us a model of his 200-foot yacht. the real one, he says, makes him seasick. where is it now? >> prokhorov: really, i... i

don't know. >> kroft: you don't know where it is? >> prokhorov: no. >> kroft: and we spotted some of his other toys. >> prokhorov: it's brand new. it's a kalashnikov, but for special forces. >> kroft: it never hurts to have friends in the special forces, and right now, prokhorov has friends everywhere. the night we were invited for dinner, the guest list included a former russian governor and one of the country's biggest movie stars at a table laden with regional delicacies flown in for the occasion, and endless bottles of chateau laffite rothschild '95. after business and sports, prokhorov says food is his favorite passion, followed by human interaction and beautiful women, and on that last front, he has managed to remain unencumbered. >> prokhorov: and frankly speaking, i like women. in my heart, i am still teenager. and i am very open and i don't want to hide this. >> kroft: you say you're a big risk taker, in business and in... and in sports, but not with women, right? >> prokhorov: i'm not to blame. i think women, they're making the same mistake with me all the time.

the way to the man's heart is through his stomach. >> kroft: he says he hasn't found a woman who can cook well enough to marry, but he seems to be looking for her in all the wrong places. when prokhorov took us to moscow's exclusive soho club, there were 20 beautiful women waiting in his private section to entertain him and his friends, and none of them looked like they wanted to spend their lives over a hot stove. as we said earlier, this penchant for pulchritude has gotten him into trouble before, and helped him make a fortune. but before we get to that, it helps to know about his money and how he made it. people say you are the richest man in russia. >> prokhorov: maybe. who knows? >> kroft: you don't know how much money you have? >> prokhorov: no. >> kroft: does $17 billion sound about right? >> prokhorov: i'm lucky to have enough money to be really independent. but it doesn't drive me just to count money, thinking about

money; it's only a side effect of what i'm doing in business. >> kroft: like most russian billionaires, prokhorov's fortune was molded from the ashes of the former soviet union, with a little bit of luck and the help of a powerful political connection. he was raised among the soviet elite, and studied at the prestigious moscow financial institute, where he majored in international finance. so, when communism and the soviet union finally collapsed, he was one of the few people who knew anything about world markets and free enterprise. >> prokhorov: we made a crazy transformation, just crazy. i can't imagine-- 20 years ago, we know nothing about capitalism, nothing. >> kroft: his expertise drew the attention of vladimir potanin, a future deputy prime minister of russia with close ties to the kremlin, who had just been given the right to open two private banks. he asked prokhorov to run them as his partner. the downside was, the job might get him killed.

during the 1990s, hundreds of russian businessmen were gunned down by contract killers hired to resolve disputes, or by gangsters trying to muscle in on someone else's turf. >> prokhorov: it was the wild west. it was a territory with no sheriff. >> kroft: with no sheriff. >> prokhorov: no rules. you need to survive. >> kroft: and he did survive, and with no blood on his hands. by the time he reached 30, he was already a multi-millionaire. but a much bigger payday was just around the corner. in 1995, prokhorov and potanin's bank won the equivalent of the russian lottery. kremlin leaders gave them what amounted to an insider's opportunity to buy one of the state's most valuable assets, a huge mining and metals operation called norilsk nickel, which is among the world's largest producers of nickel, copper, and platinum. they acquired it from the kremlin in a so-called "auction" for the measly sum of a few hundred million dollars, in a process that even prokhorov's business partner admitted wasn't

perfect, and probably not even legal under western standards. but it was legal in russia. yulia latynina, one of russia's top business journalists, says it was sort of like a slam dunk. no one was shocked or surprised. >> yulia latynina: everybody would have... would have been surprised if they didn't win it. ( laughs ) >> kroft: so it was rigged? >> latynina: yes, it was rigged, but it cannot be explained in normal economic terms to an outsider, especially an american. >> kroft: this is just the way these things worked? >> latynina: you had robber barons, we had oligarchs. >> kroft: prokhorov transformed the decrepit mining company into one of the most productive operations in the world, taking it public before world prices for metals and other raw materials began to skyrocket, along with the price of his stock. and he sold at the perfect time, but not necessarily because he wanted to. now, we get to the party girls. in january 2007, prokhorov flew a planeload of friends to the french ski resort of courchevel, and brought along eight russian

models to help entertain them-- not an unusual custom in the upper echelons of the russian business world, but apparently unknown to french constables, who took prokhorov into custody on suspicion of promoting prostitution. they thought that you were bringing prostitutes into the country? >> prokhorov: i think yes. it was absolutely a police misunderstanding. >> kroft: and how long were you there? >> prokhorov: three days. >> kroft: three days. you couldn't leave. >> prokhorov: it sounds strange, but it was real fun for me. it's a good experience. i like even such challenges. >> kroft: it created a minor international incident, with french president nicholas sarkozy giving prokhorov a shout-out as a "man who obviously wants to please his friends." did you think that was funny? >> prokhorov: good joke. ( laughs ) >> kroft: and prokhorov responded in kind. you said, "the french elite is envious because they're lagging behind in fashion, in life, and

in sex drive." >> prokhorov: that's true. ( laughs ) >> kroft: the russian government was not too happy about this. >> prokhorov: right. >> kroft: about the publicity. >> prokhorov: it's natural. >> kroft: french police never pressed charges and, according to prokhorov, later apologized. but russian cartoonists had a field day, a fruit juice company lampooned him in a commercial, and his well-connected business partner, vladimir potanin, suggested it would be a good time for prokhorov to sell his share of their joint ventures, which he did for $10 billion, just two months before the international financial crisis devastated the russian stock market. with prokhorov sitting on a mountain of cash, he became the richest man in the country, and it might not have happened without those party girls. >> prokhorov: it's a part of any business to be lucky. >> kroft: and you sold at just the right time? >> prokhorov: miracle happens. >> kroft: its safe to say that there aren't any n.b.a. owners with stories like that one, and

prokhorov's life in the opaque world of russian business presented a unique challenge for the national basketball association, which is charged with investigating the personal and business background of prospective n.b.a. owners. but commissioner david stern says prokhorov passed all the tests. you think he is a man of character? >> stern: i think he's a man who has passed a very tight security check, and nobody has come up with any reason why he shouldn't be an n.b.a. owner. >> kroft: commissioner stern believes prokhorov to be a shrewd businessman, although we found him to be a bit unorthodox. where's your computer? >> prokhorov: i don't use a computer. >> kroft: you have something against computers? >> prokhorov: we have too much information, and it's really impossible to filter it. >> kroft: he believes his biggest strengths are organization and leading people. any abilities you wish you had that you don't have? >> prokhorov: sometimes, maybe to be less tall. >> kroft: to be less tall?

well, you're about to enter a world of very tall people with the n.b.a. you're going to actually be pretty short. >> prokhorov: ( laughs ) compared with the players, yes. but compared with the common people, i am tall enough, trust me. >> kroft: prokhorov has been brushing up on his english and his jump shot. if everything goes according to plan, two years from now, he will move the nets to a brand new arena in brooklyn, home to the largest russian-american community in the united states. and who knows, he may even find that perfect woman he's been looking for. >> prokhorov: i'm really excited to take the worst team of the league and turn it to be the best. >> kroft: do you think you can do that? >> prokhorov: i am confident. do you remember, in the frank sinatra song, "new york, new york"-- "if i can make it there, i can make it anywhere." ( laughs )

>> welcome to the cbs sports update presented by lipitor. at the wyndham championship, arjun atwal won his first pga tour victory. and in tennis with the u.s. open one week away, roger federer beat american mardy fish in three sets to win his second straight cincinnati masters and fourth overall. for more sports news and scores, log on that was a rough time. my doctor told me i should've been doing more for my high cholesterol. ♪ you should've listened. you're right. now i'm eating healthier and i trust my heart to lipitor. [ male announcer ] when diet and exercise are not enough, adding lipitor may help. lipitor is fda approved to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in patients who have heart disease or risk factors for heart disease. lipitor is backed by over 18 years of research.

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>> rooney: when i was about 12 years old, i remember at christmas one year being ashamed of how much i liked it because of all the presents i got. it's a pretty complicated thought for a 12-year-old kid, but i had it. i've always liked presents, though. people send me a lot of things, and i wish they wouldn't, but i can't help liking them. i mean, look at this-- just a few of the things that have come in recently. this is a bottle of some kind of sauce. now, it's probably very good and from someone who likes me, but it could be very bad and from someone who hates me, too, so i don't dare eat it. someone sent me this sports whistle. why would anyone send me a whistle? the package says it's made of solid brass, it's triple-plated, and it has an extra sharp tone. well, good for it, but i certainly wouldn't want a whistle that was only double- plated and made of brass that wasn't solid. this goes under a door to keep the draft out. someone's idea of what john mccain and barack obama look

like. not my idea of what either of them look like, but what do i know? "the american government in action." this is a game. i never cared much for games; there's enough to play with in real life. "the baseball dictionary." this book has a lot more than i want to know about baseball. i'm a football fan. baseball is too caught up with numbers for me. this is a pair of socks. i don't know who they're for; they come up over my knees. i don't know what these two bags are for. why would i want two of them, anyway? this is called almond orange honey. seems like a good idea, and the bees have certainly done their job, but i never liked honey. i said i liked fudge and that i never got any good fudge anymore-- i haven't had any good fudge in years-- so a lot of people sent me good fudge. and i guess it's good. i haven't eaten all of it yet. i said i shine my own shoes. the letter that came with this stuff says it brings leather back to life. nice to think about bringing

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