Those new words said that in addition to sanctioning Sergei’s tormentors, the Magnitsky Act would sanction all other gross human rights abusers in Russia. After a dozen or so of these visits and letters, Senator Cardin and his cosponsors conferred and decided to expand the law, adding sixty-five words to the Magnitsky Act. They had inadvertently discovered a new method for fighting human rights abuses in authoritarian regimes in the twenty-first century: targeted visa sanctions and asset freezes. The senators quickly realized that they’d stumbled onto something much bigger than one horrific case. After the bill was introduced they came to Washington or wrote letters to the Magnitsky Act’s cosponsors with the same basic message: “You have found the Achilles’ heel of the Putin regime.” Then, one by one, they would ask, “Can you add the people who killed my brother to the Magnitsky Act?” “Can you add the people who tortured my mother?” “How about the people who kidnapped my husband?” And on and on. Many other victims of human rights abuses in Russia saw the same thing. I wasn’t the only one who recognized this.

Putin famously retaliated with a law that bans Americans from adopting Russian orphans.Ī financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade, Red Notice is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world, and also the story of how, without intending to, he found meaning in his life.“While these tactics were aggressive and crude, they confirmed that our legislation had touched a nerve. Because of that, he became Putin’s number one enemy, especially after Browder succeeded in having a law passed in the United States-The Magnitsky Act-that punishes a list of Russians implicated in the lawyer’s murder. He saw the murderous heart of the Putin regime and has spent the last half decade on a campaign to expose it.

His Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky wasn’t so lucky: he ended up in jail, where he was tortured to death. Bill Browder started out his adult life as the Wall Street maverick whose instincts led him to Russia just after the breakup of the Soviet Union, where he made his fortune.Īlong the way he exposed corruption, and when he did, he barely escaped with his life. This is a story about an accidental activist. “Part John Grisham-like thriller, part business and political memoir.” - The New York Times Browder’s business saga meshes well with the story of corruption and murder in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, making Red Notice an early candidate for any list of the year’s best books” ( Fortune). Freezing Order, the follow-up to Red Notice, is available now! “ does for investing in Russia and the former Soviet Union what Liar’s Poker did for our understanding of Salomon Brothers, Wall Street, and the mortgage-backed securities business in the 1980s.

Red Notice by Bill Browder