#002 Bill Browder on Surviving Putin's Wrath

Bill Browder is one of the most influential human rights activists in the world today, working to hold human rights abusers to account. Browder architected and spearheaded the campaign to pass The Magnitsky Act, a federal law that allows for sanctions, freezing assets, and visa bans on foreign nationals who’ve committed human rights abuses.

Browder, the founder of hedge fund firm Hermitage Capital Management, was once the largest foreign investor in Russia, where he took an activist investing approach by exposing high-level corruption among company managers and officials. He was expelled from Russia in 2005 and declared a threat to national security.

Police later raided his Moscow offices, and those officials used the seized documents to commit a complex and massive fraud. This $230 million fraud was discovered by Browder’s friend Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old Russian lawyer. Magnitsky, a married father, was tortured and ultimately beaten to death while in a Russian prison in 2009.

Magnitsky’s murder changed Browder’s life. From that day, he vowed to put aside his business and dedicate all his time and resources to exposing the corrupt Russians responsible for Magnitsky’s death.

He joins Julia La Roche on this episode taped in mid-June 2022 to discuss his newest book, “Freezing Order: A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath.”