Bribe, Swindle Or Steal

Sir William Browder (“Bill”), a financier turned justice advocate, is our guest for this episode of our ongoing series on extreme wealth. Bill has been the engine behind the Magnitsky Act, a law that for the past 12 years has empowered governments to seize the assets of foreign leaders who abuse human rights — a significant countermeasure against corruption and atrocity that has exasperated Vladimir Putin and oligarchs in Russia, where Bill was once a leading foreign investor. His experience working in (and subsequently abandoning) Russia allowed him to see inside that culture and economy, and have led him to conclude Putin’s military conquests as a dictator’s efforts to protect his unfathomable stolen wealth — and his own neck. Bill Browder is the founder of Hermitage Capital Management, a firm that became the top foreign investor in post-Soviet Russia. For nearly 20 years he has been the target of Russian prosecution efforts that have drawn round condemnation from the international community, as he continue