Held for almost a year without charge, Magnitsky died a few days before he was due to be released – murdered, says Browder, and a number of independent investigators, by prison guards who beat him to death. They then blamed the scam on Browder, and when his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, exposed the officers responsible for the fraud, those same officers had Magnitsky arrested. Those documents were then used by officers from the interior ministry to stage a $230m (£175m) tax rebate scam. That meant putting a stop to Browder’s busy-bodying by deporting him from Russia in 2005.Įighteen months later, Hermitage’s offices were raided by the Russian authorities and its paperwork removed.
Then in 2003 Putin jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky, at the time the richest oligarch in Russia, and instead of opposing corruption, began putting the squeeze on the duly intimidated oligarchy. There’s something deeply offending to our sense of justice about an innocent man framed by powerful forces
His big innovation was shareholder activism, in which he targeted corrupt practices in some of the biggest companies, such as Gazprom, and by doing so raised their share price. In these years, Browder made a fortune, turning Hermitage into the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. When Putin came to power on New Year’s Eve 1999, promising to stamp out corruption, Browder was a relieved man.Īnd he remained pro-Putin for the next three years, as the new Russian leader imposed state order on capitalist anarchy. Business feuds were regularly settled by bullets, and the life expectancy of bankers was radically shortened. It was a time of wild profiteering, as post-Soviet state assets were sold off on the cheap, and a venal oligarchy was created.
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