Bill Browder tells the story of his financial dealings in Russia in “Red Notice”. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Browder saw an opportunity to buy stake

Bill Browder tells the story of his financial dealings in Russia in “Red Notice”. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Browder saw an opportunity to buy stakes in Russian firms in the 1990s. Then, state ownership of companies was being portioned out to workers in the form of shares. Needing cash for daily living, the workers were on-selling their shares at impromptu auctions at a fraction of their true value. Browder took advantage of this and spent millions, on behalf of wealthy western investors, buying shares whose true value was in the billions. Criminals or state officials then came after the shares that he had acquired. To get at Browder, their methods included imprisoning and killing his auditor friend, Sergei Magnitsky. The scheme to get Browder’s clients’ money included the illegal transfer of ownership of a Browder company to themselves, have it declare a loss and get a multi-million dollar tax refund. The US and the UK have recently passed Magnitsky Acts aimed at restricting the travel of those directly involved in the detention and murder of Sergei Magnitsky.