This week, American-British financier, human rights activist and author Bill Browder is in Norway, in connection with his latest book, “Cold money. A true story of surviving Putin’s wrathWill be published in Norwegian.
The book is about his hunt for the huge sums of money that Putin and his regime transfer to secret accounts and straw companies abroad. It led to Browder being arrested, receiving death threats, trying to lure him into a honey trap and having to live with a vast security regime. Browder has also been to Norway several times, but tells Dagbladet that he doesn’t understand Norwegian politics:
– This is the country where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. Norway was the country that in its day had the most sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa than any other country in the world. What happened? he asks.
War averted
Browder started as a businessman in Russia in the 1990s and has made his way as Russia’s largest fund manager. There he discovered how a small elite of Russians stole huge sums from the treasury, which they strangely sent out of Russia. He started the hunt for this money in the tax havens of Western countries. In 2005, Browder was deported, blacklisted and classified as a “national security threat” in Russia.
In 2009, his lawyer and tax friend, Segey Magnitsky, was killed in prison.
– The pain and anger that my friend and lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was brutally killed by the Putin regime 13 years ago drives me every single day. Perhaps even stronger, because we see all the other victims inside and outside Putin’s Russia, says Browder.
He continues to think that he could have done more to stop Putin and Russia, had he been able to make the West understand how ruthless Putin and his regime are.
– The war in Ukraine could have been avoided if I had been more efficient and convincing in my work. The West has always been passive because everyone was busy with their narrow economic agenda, Browder says today.
He points out that Germany was very interested in gaining access to Russian gas. That the whole world sat in silence and watched Putin’s Russia invading neighboring countries got rid of the opponents.
– If the West had been tougher in the past, perhaps the world would have been different today, says Browder.
Putin hunts
For 13 years, Browder traveled the world in an attempt to create a law, the Magnitsky Act, to freeze the billions of dollars that Russian oligarchs smuggled out of the country, while most Russians live in poverty.
– He put me in grave danger. For Putin, respect is the only thing that matters to him. If you resist him, you don’t respect him. Then you must die. That’s why Putin spent 13 years chasing me around the world, with arrest warrants, Interpol searches, death threats and the like, says Browder.
DON’T GIVE UP: Despite death threats, arrests and Interpol searches: Financier and human rights activist Bill Browder refuses to give up on the fight against Putin. Now his book on the fight to survive Putin’s wrath has been published in Norwegian. Photo: Kristin Svorte / Dagbladet
sea View
In 2012, the United States was the first country to adopt the Magnitsky Act. Subsequently, the United Kingdom, Canada, the EU, the Baltic countries and others followed suit. Last year, Norway also adopted its Magnitsky law, but chose to call it the sanctions law.
– I think it is difficult to understand what is the engine behind political decisions in this country. In the rest of the world, money is often the driving force behind most things. For better or for worse, says Browder.
He thinks about it for a while and continues:
– What confuses me about Norway is that you have all the money in the world. You are not dependent on anyone. You could have been the guardian of morality, but Norway takes a somewhat passive position, where you don’t make decisions until others do. I just don’t understand, she says.
– Don’t be a coward
In addition to launching his book, Browder meets former foreign minister Ine Eriksen Søreide. The hope is to get sanctions against named individuals who are said to have been behind the arrest of Putin’s critic and friend of Browder Vladimir Kara-Murza.
The 58-year-old points out that he has stood up to Vladimir Putin for 13 years.
– Norway can oppose China, Iran. Put in. I don’t understand why Norway does not take the lead, brave and proud. I think most Norwegians would be happier if you used your financial muscles in the service of good, instead of being cowardly, like a little child, she says.
In his latest book, Browder talks about his quest for justice, after his friend and tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was first arrested and then brutally killed in prison in 2009. Several people he worked with were killed or arrested along the way. .
– I have been a financier, but I feel much better as an activist, than being a coward and trying to make more money. I’m sure Norway could have learned something from me. I have been a super capitalist for a while, but I have found that fighting for justice is much more satisfying. Norway should do the same, says Browder.
Dagbladet asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs if he would like to comment on Browder’s views on Norwegian policy, but has so far received no response.
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