Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath

by Bill Browder

When we’d started this process, I viewed every question from the SDNY as confirmation that the case was moving forward. But after months of giving and giving, I began to worry that this was turning out to be no more than some kind of government fact-finding exercise that would lead nowhere. All of this was made even more upsetting by what was going on in Moscow. On March 6, a Russian state-controlled television station, NTV, aired a 45-minute “documentary” called Browder’s List in a prime time slot. According to the film, not only had I evaded taxes, but I’d stolen $4.5 billion of IMF bailout funds from under the noses of all international authorities and the Russian government, and I’d killed my former business partner, Edmond Safra, who’d died tragically in a fire at his house in Monaco in 1998. These types of “documentaries” were pro forma leading up to any major political show trial, with the aim of convincing the Russian public that the defendant was a truly heinous individual. The trial against Sergei and me started the following week. In May, while it was in full swing, Russia issued its first Interpol Red Notice for my arrest. This had been inevitable, but it still came as a shock. I had finally been upgraded to Russia’s international wanted list. Fortunately, after my lawyers intervened, Interpol deleted this Red Notice from their system for being politically motivated. But that wasn’t going to stop the Putin regime. This weaponization of Interpol, which is notori...