From the beginning of the recent invasion of Ukraine, politicians and analysts from around the world have been trying to peer into the mind of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Bill Browder doesn’t need to start peering into Putin’s mind; he’s known Putin quite well for years, first as head of the largest investment fund in Russia, and then as Putin’s greatest archenemy.
Browder’s grandfather was leader of the Communist Party in America in the 1930s and ’40s, but his grandson Bill became an ardent capitalist, making his money in post-Soviet Russia. In 1996, he founded Hermitage Capital Management, together with the famed banker Edmond Safra.
In 1997, Hermitage was one of the best performing hedge funds in the world. But the following year, Russia’s economy took a nosedive. As his fund cratered, Browder was determined to find out what had happened.
Browder and his team ended up investigating the corruption of Russia’s oligarchs, the crooked businessmen who controlled the economy, and publicizing their behavior. Putin seemed to like that. But in 2004, Putin forced the oligarchs to cut him in on their profits—and Browder became a dangerous thorn in his side. Browder was arrested and then expelled from the country.
He was able to get both his money and his employees out of the country. But when the Russians seized the investment company itself and transferred it to criminals, Browder hired a young Russian lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky to investigate. In the course of his inquiries, he discovered massive tax fraud on the part of the new owners and reported it to the Russian state investigative committee.
Five weeks later, Magnitsky was arrested and imprisoned. After refusing to confess to any crimes, he was transferred to a maximum-security prison, where he developed several painful chronic conditions and was given inadequate medical treatment. He was ultimately found dead in his cell in the prison’s medical unit in 2009, presumably beaten to death by members of the Russian Ministry of the Interior.
Browder started a campaign to have the Russian officials sanctioned for their treatment of Magnitsky, which led to the law known as the Magnitsky Act, under which the US can sanction human rights abusers and freeze their assets. This made Browder Putin’s biggest enemy of all, as he had created a law that could potentially hurt him financially.
I recently spoke with Bill Browder about his experiences and how he views the current war in Ukraine.
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