The author, Bill Browder, may be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s No. 1 foe. For the past several years the British-American investor has led an international campaign to expose deep corruption and human-rights abuses in Putin’s Russia. His efforts culminated with the 2012 passage of the Magnitisky Act, which forbids “gross abusers” of rights in Russia from banking in or visiting the United States It’s named after Browder’s lawyer Sergei Magnitisky, a whistleblower who was murdered in a Moscow prison in 2009 after uncovering massive Russian government fraud.
But before Browder became a thorn in Putin’s side, he was an ally of sorts. Browder was the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, and the largest foreign investor in Russia until he ran afoul of the government in 2005. In the tumultuous years following the fall of the Soviet Union, Browder made a fortune for himself and his clients by confronting some of the country’s corrupt oligarchs—a goal initially shared by Putin. But going after tycoons in Russia could be dangerous work, as Browder describes in this excerpt of his new book, Red Notice.