Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice

An incredible and shocking expose of "official corruption" (that's a good oxymoron) in Russia. The story traces Browder's life and initial success as an investor in Russian businesses as they are privatized after the collapse of the USSR. The oligarchs get really greedy after the Russian economy tanks in the late 1990's and they lose their incentives to stay clean. They start to steal money from Western investors, aided and abetted by Russian officials. The government officials learn from the oligarchs and start to steal too; Browder suggests that includes Putin. Browder calls them all on that and soon comes under attack himself. He gets deported from Russia but manages to get his assets out of the country. Unfortunately one of his tax show more attorneys pays the ultimate price of standing up to the bad behaviour, and he is imprisoned, beaten and tortured to death. Browder, an American with British citizenship, gets no support at all from the British government. He turns to the press and the internet to bring his story to the public. This works, but not always. In the end it is the U.S. that supports him although he runs afoul of the Obama "reset" and then Senator John Kerry's plan to become Secretary of State. (Secretary of State Clinton did nothing to support him either, probably because she was too busy travelling.) It was several Senators from both parties that sponsored legislation to ban the Russian officials from the US (which infuriated the Russians --read that as Putin). This legislation passed only after a lot of resistance from Kerry.

The book reads like a spy thriller and sometimes you say: "this can't be going on". It's a damning portrayal of the Russian establishment.

A sobering lesson to those who live or work outside North America. show less

This non-fiction book is almost unbelievable. It's a real eye-opener for someone like me who lives in a free, democratic country. Well written, riveting story about a former hedge fund manager's search for justice and accountability from Vladimir Putin and his government.

In addition to the issues raised by the book, I also reflected on Mr. Browder's continued work and the impact this must have on his wife and young children. I wonder how far I would go if I thought the safety of my family was at risk?

Prequel to Freezing Order (2022)
Review of the Simon & Schuster hardcover edition (February, 2015)

It didn't make any financial sense.
Then I remembered why he would do this: because it is the Russian thing to do.
There’s a famous Russian proverb about this type of behavior. One day, a poor villager happens upon a magic talking fish that is ready to grant him a single wish. Overjoyed, the villager weighs his options: “Maybe a castle? Or even better—a thousand bars of gold? Why not a ship to sail the world?” As the villager is about to make his decision, the fish interrupts him to say that there is one important caveat: whatever the villager gets, his neighbor will receive two of the same. Without skipping a beat, the villager says,

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“In that case, please poke one of my eyes out.”
The moral is simple - when it comes to money, Russians will gladly - gleefully, even - sacrifice their own success to screw their neighbour. - Bill Browder relating an anecdote from late 1997 about one of his early experiences with investments in Russia, excerpted from Red Notice

I'll confess that when Red Notice first appeared in early 2015, the related news of Magnitsky Legislation was then such a current topic in Canada that I felt like I already knew everything about it.

It was after being impressed by Browder's writing in Freezing Order (2022), that I decided I had to read the earlier book as well. I was just as impressed with it. Whether Browder has and had the assistance of a ghostwriter or whether he has simply studied the various tropes and techniques of suspense & thriller writing, he masterfully constructs a story of the rise and the downfall of his idealized plans for investment in Russia's future in the post-Soviet Communist era.

Again, Browder starts off with a in medias res vignette: his deportation from Russia in 2007. Only then does he go into the 15 or so years of backstory of how he began his Hermitage Investment Group after first becoming aware of the possibilities of investment growth in the former countries of the Soviet Bloc. Despite early warning signs (see the 1997 anecdote above), he and his staff persisted in exposing Russian attempts to defraud his investors through the legal system. At one time it even seemed as if his goals were aligned with those of the dictator Vladimir Putin, who gleefully joined in with pursuing the prosecution of oligarchs. It of course finally became clear that Putin was doing this only for his own ends and enrichment.

Despite Browder's liquidating his Russian assets and assisting most of his staff to leave the country, several of his Russian lawyers refused to leave their homeland and had faith that justice and the legal system would win in the end. Tragically, Sergei Magnitsky (1972-2009) was framed in a tax evasion scheme and met his death under torture in a Russian prison. The corruption and injustice of the previous Russian Communist state was revealed to still be there and was as vicious as ever.

Red Notice tells the story of how this initiated Browder's worldwide campaign to obtain justice for Sergei Magnitsky and other victims of totalitarian kleptocracies by promoting the creation of legislation to sanction the profiteers of injustice. The story continues in the present day. show less

I was skeptical when this book was chosen for my book group. Subtitled, “A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice,” this is not my usual genre. So I was surprised when I found myself caught up in a fast-paced thriller that was hard to put down. Browder left Wall Street for Russia just after the fall of the Soviet Union. He was young, brash, savvy, and in the right place at the right time, taking advantage of Russian economic conditions to create an enormously successful hedge fund. But after exposing Russian corruption, Browder found himself on the wrong side of the government, up to and including Vladimir Putin. As the situation escalated, a member of Browder’s team was arrested and ultimately show more murdered. Shaken to the core, Browder redirected his personal energy towards relentless pursuit of justice.

The workings of Putin’s regime are legendary and yet also masked by confusing intrigue. Red Notice makes it clear that what occasionally appears in the news is not just the stuff of legend, but something very real. And while Browder doesn’t seem like the kind of guy I’d like to hang out with in real life (too much raw ambition), I couldn’t help but admire the ways he used his power and reputation to investigate the Russian government, gain access to US and UK government decision-makers, and work the diplomatic and legal systems to achieve his goals. But at the same time, he lives in a constant state of danger and takes countermeasures to ensure his own security, including publishing this book. As he wrote, “If I’m killed, you will know who did it.” While that statement took my breath away, it also gave me a new respect for those who risk their lives to fight wrongdoing. show less

It's been a while since I knocked off 380 pages in a day. Despite being pretty familiar with Browder's story — at least the second half of it, after the murder of Sergei Magnitsky — I found Red Notice highly readable. In 40 punchy chapters we get the background to the author's entanglement in Russia's anarcho-capitalism, an account of the events leading to Magnitsky's death at the hands of Putin's gruesome gang, and the story of the important legislation that bears his (Mag's, not Vlad's) name.

Anyone who stands up to Putin is alright in my book, but Browder sure got into bed with some unsavoury characters as he worked his way up — he goes from working for Robert Maxwell, to Salomon Bros, to a key deal brokered by the notoriously show more dodgy diamond dealer Bennie Steinmetz, all within the space of two or three years. As Damascene stories go, Browder's conversion to anti-corruption/human rights campaigner is one of the more jolting — but all the more impressive for that. show less

Bill Browder gives us a true story but he tries too much.

He tries too much to persuade us that the only good Russians are the ones that stayed by his side. Everyone else is corrupt to the bone, indifferent to their community's sufferings and injustice, only interested in earning money no matter what.
He tries too much to persuade us that Putin is an evil, malevolent, despicable dictator who cares not at all about the country he rules, but only about his bank account and his comrades in crime.
He tries too much to persuade us that he (Browder) is a hard working, honest person, who upholds high ideals and values, and tries every day to bring justice to the best of his abilities.
He tries too much to persuade us that all the politicians that show more helped him bring the Magnitsky bill to vote were emotional, caring people and the rest were indifferent, cruel persons who couldn't see beyond the end of their noses.
He tries too much to persuade us that his adventure in Russia was the result of a conflict bound to happen between two opposite sides: the dishonest, cheating, criminal vs the good, honest, hardworking free market representatives.
He tries too much to persuade us that he is a good, benevolent person.

None in the western 'civilised', 'democratised' world we live in doubts the fact that Russia under Putin's regime is not a free and just state. But how much different from our western societies Russia really is?
Don't we face daily cases like the one Browder describes in the west? How much different are the cases of Edward Snowden, Julian Assnage, Mordechai Vanunu, Chelsey Manning, and so many others that chose to reveal the truth only to be condemned, unjustly sentenced and imprisoned or exiled?
Don't we have countless cases of torturing to death of innocent people by agencies like the CIA, the MI6, the Mossad, the Mabahith? Don't we have facilities like Guantanamo?
So why should we be awed or inspired by Browder's book? Only because we have the right to vote every four years?
Why should we be emotionally touched or care at all for Browder's success? Only because he managed to pass a bill that prohibits a few corrupt Russian officials to travel to the US? Or maybe because wherever he recounted the story of Sergei Magnitsky the audience burst into tears?

Browder is no more innocent than the people he accuses of stealing taxes from the Russian state (and I do believe him that they did).
The collapse of the Eastern Block saved western capitalism by a mathematically scheduled crisis, by introducing new, virgin markets to exploit (eventually the crisis wasn't avoided completely but delayed for a few years). Browder was one of our envoys arriving to these 'newfound' lands to spread our belief in money and wealth through debt; to teach the ignorant indigenous people the values of our true western religion: capitalism.
Without any remorse or hesitation he bought for pennies priceless stakes of exceptionally wealthy companies all over the ex-eastern-block countries. He made a fortune and at the same time the majority of the population of these countries became even poorer than they were before the political change. Of course he wasn't the only one. He knew very well that his efforts to exploit this new untapped wealth will bring him face to face against some of the most dangerous people in these countries. People that had already some power status from before and weren't going to allow any westerner to take what they considered to be theirs.

What kind of person decides to sink into the mud along with brutal, ruthless individuals?

Browder accuses his opponents of stealing from the Russian people and thus rendering them poorer. How exactly do we call his dealings in the ex-eastern markets when he was buying for a few dollars stocks of ex-public enterprises from naive poor people who didn't know what they had in their hands? People for which even a few dozen dollars were absolutely necessary to survive the day?

Browder made billions not because he is an honest, hard working person, but because he is as brutal and ruthless as the people who fought him in Russia.

Don't read this book as a manifesto about honesty and justice, but as the testimony of one of the combatants in an ugly and dishonest war between wealthy people. show less

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3368348.html

This is an impressive first-person account of one businessman who was ruthlessly targeted by the Kremlin for trying to operate freely in Russia. Browder managed to make a lot of money in Eastern Europe in the wild days immediately after the fall of Communism, but ran foul of the Russian authorities, who used the full force of bad law to strip his assets (of which he had a lot) and, much worse, arrested Browder's legal adviser Sergei Magnitsky, who then died as a result of his mistreatment in jail. Browder's is not the only such story, but it is very well told, and he has vindicated Magnitsky's memory by getting legislation passed in various jurisdictions allowing direct sanctions against those show more who have abused human rights. One or two people who I know personally show up in the narrative (in a good way!) which is always interesting too. Recommended. show less