Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder (Epub)

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⭐Bill Browder tells a compelling story but manages to not come off as a sympathetic character. He was making money hand over fist on the backs of Russians and doesn’t seem to see any inconsistency. He never mentions doing anything to give back to the Russian people. Chapter upon chapter goes on and on about him and comes across as narcissistic and gets in the way of the story. His play by play of getting the Magnitsky Act passed was more about Bill Browder than about getting justice for his auditor (he calls him his attorney). Bill Browder never made any efforts to learn Russian, to learn the culture or to have any understanding of the people who worked for him. If he had, he would have realized that a suggestion that Magnitsky just pick up and leave Russia was out of the question for him.Several sections come across as disingenuous. For example, he criticizes his first wife for planning an incredibly expensive vacation and then brags about an expensive vacation that he takes with his second wife. He fakes humility at the hearings for the Magnitsky Act, but brags about his meetings with Senators and the talks he is invited to give. He repeatedly talks about how his talks and speeches were the only ones that could make certain audiences cry. It seems far-fetched for him to call himself a human rights activist. He took up on one cause for his auditor, Magnitsky. What are his other great acts of human rights activism? I really don’t see any. He states late in the book that he has no culpability in the death of Magnitsky. On the one hand, that is completely true. The Russian guards denied medical care and beat Magnitsky to death. However, it is Browder who thought he could reveal corruption in Russia while in Russia and remain untouched. His arrogance and disregard for culture and political realities made him a less than sympathetic person. His descriptions of people’s body shapes and voice tones are also a distraction and unnecessary, much like his description of dating his second wife. It gave a window into his character. He talked about dating her the way someone describes a sporting event using words like win and conquer. He went out of his way to write about how beautiful she was and how other men wanted her but he won her, making her sound like a prize instead of a human. He attempts to sound like he cares for the Russian orphans that now cannot be adopted by US citizens, but it sounded more like a passing thought. If he is a human rights activist, what is he doing for the orphans, especially since the ceasing of adoptions was a direct retaliation for the Magnitsky Act.There are no doubts that Magnitsky was unjustly killed in a Russian prison by Russian officials. Unfortunately, the way Bill Browder wrote the book leaves the reader thinking about Bill Browder and not about the corrupt Russian government and its impact on our country.All of these qualities of Bill Browder and the style of his writing where he repeatedly portrays himself as a magnificent human rights activist were a complete turnoff.

⭐Red Notice reads like a thriller but is a non-fiction account of corruption in Putin’s Russia. Bill Browder is an American businessman whose grandfather was general secretary of the American Communist Party. However, he went to Russia to be a capitalist. He made a fortune for his investors by exposing corruption in the Russian markets. However, then the Russians came for him. Before the Russians shut him down, he got his fund’s assets out of Russia as well as its employees. Then they came after his lawyers. Two successfully escaped Russia, but one, Sergei Magnitsky, refused to be bullied. He was arrested, tortured and died in prison. Browder then devoted his life to getting justice for Magnitsky and humiliating Putin. He managed to hit the Russian oligarchs who keep Putin in power by getting the U.S. Congress (and later the European Parliament) to pass the Magnitsky Act. The Magnitsky Act freezes the foreign assets of Russians who were involved in the death of Sergei. The bad guy in the story is Putin but a dishonorable mention goes to Hillary Clinton and John Kerry who fought to derail the Magnitsky Act to avoid upsetting their Russian reset.The book is written with remarkable clarity and deftly explains difficult subject matter. It is extremely timely as it provides the backdrop for the meeting that Donald Trump, Jr. held with a Russian lawyer who wanted to discuss lifting the Magnitsky sanctions.

⭐This is a well written book. Audible version is quite good as well – excellent narrator. W/ respect to the subject matter, however, I am of the mind, “we reap what we sow”. Browder casts himself as a sympathetic character. I disagree. He is @ ground zero – part of the problem. He is part of the core problem which culminated in the death of Magnitsky.Of course, what happened to Magnitsky was abhorrent. I agree as well that sanctions against corrupt state operators, kleptocrats, banksters, etc who rob their country blind, pillage public coffers, etc should be enacted & enforced. What I also believe is the SAME actions should be taken against HEDGE FUND OPERATORS whose actions are equally or even more egregious. At the VERY least, they are complicit in the pain & suffering people endure as a result of their actions.What happened to Magnitsky pales by orders of magnitude compared to the devastating and irreversible long-term effects of the unfettered, rogue capitalism w/in which Browder became a wealthy man. He did so by making a vocation of predatory profiteering – pillaging & picking the bones of stressed, failing or failed states. While not illegal, how he made/makes his fortune is amoral.Right now, as I write this review, Puerto Rico has been DEVASTATED by Hurricane Maria. There is NO Electricity on the ENTIRE island and the PRIVATIZED electric company REFUSES to restore electricity. Why? Because hedge fund operators preyed on Puerto Rico – left the ppl & the state even more impoverished and, now, in perpetual peonage. Essential public services (e.g. power & water) infrastructure were sold off / “privatized” (turned into for-profit operations) @ bargain basement prices to pay toward their debt. The authority of the island’s mayor was usurped. Puerto Rico’s finances are now CONTROLLED by a board of predatory banksters who will ensure Puerto Rico remains in perpetual peonage to them. Ppl have & will continue to die as a direct result of the unconscionable profiteering by hedge fund operations.This is not an isolated incident. This rapacious behavior by rogue capitalist operations like hedge fund management companies is sweeping the globe. Decimating countries – often leaving autocratic, tyrannous governments in their wake. Hedge fund profiteers wash their hands of culpability for the fallout from their actions as they belly up to the trough & fatten themselves off unimaginable misery. So, when one of them falls, the irony of the wildly disproportionate ratio of their fallen to those whom they “rescued” (profiteered off of) is not lost on me..

⭐Even if you follow international news only casually, you’re likely to be aware that Putin’s Russia is a kleptocracy. The country is effectively governed by fewer than two dozen oligarchs. Some, including President Vladimir Putin himself, hold government office. Others are private “bankers” and “businessmen.” Together, they have looted hundreds of billions of dollars, plundering Russia’s oil and gas reserves and buying up government enterprises at pennies on the dollar in a corrupt process of privatization.The truth about Putin’s RussiaPutin alone is reported to have amassed a fortune of at least $40 billion. Other observers consider him the richest man in the world, with assets totaling more than $100 billion. Though from time to time we’ve also read reports about the murder of whistle-blowers, investigative journalists, and opposition politicians, these fragmentary reports don’t make clear just ruthless and brazen the rulers of Putin’s Russia have shown themselves to beRussian-American journalist Masha Geffen’s expose, The Man Without a Face, gave us insight into the rise of Putin himself. Now comes Red Notice, Bill Browder‘s lucid memoir of nearly two decades’ involvement in the Russian financial markets. Through painful personal experience, Browder bore witness to the violence and other criminal behavior that built the great fortunes at the top of Russia’s economic pyramid today.An investment adviser turns civil rights activistRed Notice encompasses two stories. First is the remarkable tale of how Browder made a fortune through investments in Russia in the 1990s and early 2000s. Second is the story of how quickly his business, his life, and his colleagues’ lives began falling apart once Browder ran afoul of Vladimir Putin. He began his career as an investment adviser. He ended it as a civil rights activist.Browder is a remarkable figure in his own right. His grandfather was Earl Browder, who headed the US Communist Party during the 1930s and 40s and twice ran for President on its ticket. Other members of his family, including his father, two uncles, and his brother, are not just progressive politically but prodigies in science and math as well. They hold distinguished professorships in their fields at top universities. (“In my family,” Browder writes, “if you weren’t a prodigy, then you had no place on earth.”) Bill Browder himself rebelled against his family from an early age, resolving to do the one thing that would most upset his family: become a capitalist. And so he did, earning an MBA from Stanford and going to work for the investment bank Salomon Brothers and later as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group.Making billions from privatizationBrowder’s interest in Eastern Europe soon got him involved in some of the very first privatizations in that region. Later, having proven his ability to pick wise investments in Poland and elsewhere in the region, he founded his own firm in Moscow, Hermitage Capital Management. With substantial funds from Israeli and American investors, Browder quickly built Hermitage into “the best-performing emerging-markets fund in the world” in 2000. By the early years of this century, the firm held $4.5 billion in assets. It had been started only in 1996 with $25 million. Browder made all this money taking great risks with large investments in what appeared to be sure-fire 50- or 100-to-1 payoffs as the Russian privatization program proceeded. He turned out to be right again and again.This process of privatization lay the foundation for many of today’s great fortunes in Russia. “Instead of 150 million Russians sharing the spoils of mass privatization,” which had been the alleged purpose of the program, “Russia wound up with twenty-two oligarchs owning 39 percent of the economy and everyone else living in poverty. . . [B]y the year 2000 the richest person had become 250,000 times richer than the poorest person.” This is not the way business works in most of the rest of the world. It’s criminality, pure and simple. It may be unkind to point out that Browder might well have been one of these oligarchs had he been Russian. The fortune he built was considerable.From Putin’s favor to criminal chargesOnce Browder ran afoul of Putin and his cronies, the full might of the Russian government began mobilizing to ruin him. Police official raided not just his offices but those of his lawyers as well on the basis of trumped-up charges. Criminals literally stole three of his companies by forging documents and filing them in obscure provincial courts. Bogus complaints were lodged against Browder and his lawyers for tax evasion, beginning a years-long saga which ended when criminals engineered the theft of $230 million from the Russian government—the same amount Browder’s firm had actually paid in taxes! But all this legal maneuvering was only the beginning. During these times, Browder successfully moved all his assets out of Russia and out of reach. When the criminals realized there was nothing to steal, the threats escalated. Browder then managed to extract two of his principal lawyers from the country before they could be jailed and tortured. A third, Sergei Magnitsky, was not so lucky.Much of Red Notice is about Bill Browder’s years-long effort to gain Magnitsky’s freedom. When he failed, and Magnitsky eventually died before the age of 40 from torture, medical neglect, and a vicious beating by guards when he was deathly ill, Browder became virtually a full-time civil rights activist. It was in large part through his efforts that the US government eventually took action against the 60 individuals who had taken part in the illegal jailing, torture, medical neglect, and murder of Sergei Magnitsky. With help from several remarkable government officials, he even managed to persuade a very reluctant Obama Administration to issue sanctions personally directed at the 60. Their vehicle was the Magnitsky Act of 2012, which Browder was instrumental in passing. It’s a truly moving and remarkable tale.

⭐I just finished reading this book. Its author, Bill Browder, tells his story deliberately, so much so that it wasn‘t until halfway through that I realized what his story was truly about. It’s about the deep, abiding Stink that many human beings are content to claim as their own; and many, many more are content to turn a blind eye toward, if exposing the Stink doesn’t serve their immediate interests. We Americans constantly allow ourselves to be distracted by meaningless pablum if we think we can profit by it. But this story: Browder’s memoir is true, every word. This is one of those narratives that should keep us awake at night.

⭐This is a modern day rags to riches story. The passion for money and the grouping if minds to achieve goals that are legal, brilliantly strategic, and lead to enormous wealth. The slow turn into a story of human rights is compelling, revealing of the realities if national and international politicians, and ultimately how far are individuals willing to go to fight for justice. It leaves me breathless that this conveys all of that within 281 pages. It leaves one feeling the highs and lows, thrills and chills, love and fear, and the power of one person to garner the contacts to make everlasting change. I will never forget Sergei, Bill, their families, and others who played lead roles in this book. I will be looking on YouTube and other places to watch for myself. The mere fact that I consider myself politically aware and yet completely unaware of this story speaks volumes. But thanks to this book, I am aware. Wealth is a number. It NEVER equals a life. Bill Browder is now near the top of “Who would you like to have lunch with if you could have lunch with anyone famous” list. I wish a happy and safe life toYou, Elena, David, and your 2 daughters.

⭐Important and critical reading in the current geopolitical climate. It provides a great high-level overview of the privatization of the Soviet Union that resulted in the modern Russia we know today. From there it provides a level of documentation and research into the illegal activities that culminated in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky that is simply incredible. It really highlights the multitude and magnitude of challenges that someone can face in bringing light to injustice in today’s world.After reading this book it is important to stop and think about the implications. Reflect on the lies, conflicting reports, willful ignorance, obfuscation, moral equivalences, retaliatory actions, argumentum ad hominems, threats and more. Think about the odds against this story ever coming to light in this way. Then think about the fact that it is real. The evidence is real and there is a trail of documents. The Magnitsky Act is real and was passed into law. It is so easy to have doubts today. There is immeasurable value in having these truths and reality to ground us.

⭐Although I read a lot, I don’t read a lot of non-fiction. I’m not sure why I selected Red Notice, but I’m very glad I did. The story is so engaging and well-written that I really “couldn’t put it down”. The story Browder tells is startling and he fills in actual facts behind the headlines we have all read. How did the Russian oligarchs actually get their money? Does the Russian government imprison people on the basis of complete lies? Is the Putin regime as brutal as we have been lead to believe? I came away from reading the book with a new gratitude for the rule of law and, with all of its flaws, the US system of justice. The story is a testimony to what one dedicated individual can do for human rights. I don’t often write reviews, but this is a story that deserves to be read.

⭐This is two stories about the life of Bill Brower, now a British citizen, but originally a Chicago boy from the South Side.The first story is about a brilliant young man, the son and grandson an exceptional academic family who after grad school (MBA, Stanford) chose an investment career in – of all places – Russia, where he was surely one of the earliestto start and base his own investment company (Hermitage) on investments in Russian resources and companies that extracted those resources. In doing this – all very much by himself – he became extraordinarily wealthy (current net worth estimated at over $100 Million), and in the process attracted the unwelcome attention of of Comrad Putin, which gave rise to the second story of this riveting book.The second story is about the efforts on the part of the highest Russian oligarchs, including Putin himself, to bring him down, which is a harrowing story that involved the murder of one of Browder’s closest business associates, a Russian attorney, who was killed by reason of his engagement by and with Browder…This is an amazing, engaging and brilliant story that I recommend unequivocally.

⭐Red Notice is a non-fictional, auto-biographical account of an American investment capitalist who acquires a British passport and freely conducts business in Russia, by Bill Browder himself, written in 2015. He manages a lucrative investment fund and tells about the ups and downs involved in the world of high finance. Meet Bill. Bill is in emerging markets. He is an affable people person. He evaluates their abilities for achieving lofty goals. He avidly encourages and enables qualified individuals with the vision to do their jobs better. You will find that he possesses a certain set of traits which places him in the “most unforgettable character” category.

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