Bill Browder – “I am a personal enemy of Putin”

As the CEO of Hermitage Capital, Bill Browder controlled a $4.5bn fund, making him the largest foreign investor in Russia. But by battling with the powerful oligarchs who controlled the majority of Russian wealth – and, later, with Vladimir Putin – he found himself making powerful enemies.
“I was doing what I thought was a public service for Russia by publicly going after the bad guys,” he tells Colm O'Regan in the new Hot Press. “I’d been living there for 10 years, and had a fully established life. I had no idea that I was about to have that life turned upside down. I was expelled from the country and declared a threat to national security.”
In the intervening months and years, Russian authorities stole Browder’s companies, using them to fraudulently claim $230m in tax refunds. The only member of the Hermitage team who’d remained in Russia, Sergei Magnistsky, fought to right the injustice.
““He stayed, testified against those who did wrong, and was then arrested by those people. At any time, he could have signed a confession saying that he stole the money at my instruction. But he wasn’t going to do it, even to save his own life. He was imprisoned, tortured and killed.”
The tragic death of Magnitsky led Browder on a journey to fight for justice, detailed in his new book Red Notice. It all, though, occurs under a sinister shadow.
““I don’t spend a lot of time agonising about what could happen,” he shrugs. “But unfortunately, I’m a personal enemy of Vladimir Putin’s, and he has the ability and the will to carry out assassinations. I’m not going to stop what I’m doing out of fear. But if I’m killed, you’ll know who did it.”
Read the incredible interview in the new issue of Hot Press, on sale now!