Extreme Wealth - Episode 4: Bill Browder and the Pitiless Greed of Vladimir Putin
Bribe, Swindle or Steal
Alexandra Addison-Wrage of TRACE International
4.9 • 582 Ratings
🗓️ 16 October 2024
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 continues to promote the rule of law and denounce the regime of Vladimir Putin. He's the author of "Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder and One Man's Fight for Justice" and "Freezing Order: A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Putin is in a very tough spot right now. |
| 0:07.0 | And he's desperately afraid of losing power because he loses power, he loses money, |
| 0:12.0 | loses his freedom, and loses his life. |
| 0:14.0 | And that's the situation we're in right now, which is why he started this war in Ukraine. |
| 0:19.0 | This war in Ukraine is not about NATO enlargement or some |
| 0:23.6 | grand vision of Russian empire. This war is about a guy who's stolen too much money, who's desperately |
| 0:30.0 | afraid of dying, who's ready to sacrifice anything in the country in order so that he doesn't |
| 0:34.9 | die. Welcome back to the podcast, bribe, swindle or steel. |
| 0:39.2 | I'm Alexandra Rogge, and today we bring you another in our ongoing series about the impact of |
| 0:44.2 | extreme wealth. |
| 0:45.6 | As in past episodes, we're speaking with guests who have a unique portal into this world |
| 0:49.9 | and have been willing to share their thoughts on how it changes the rules that people live by. |
| 1:00.9 | We're continuing our exploration of extreme wealth, who seeks it, how it changes their lives, |
| 1:06.7 | how it impacts philanthropy, and in some cases, including today, the geopolitical landscape. |
| 1:11.7 | My guest is Bill Browder, as of the 2024 King's birthday honors, Sir William Browder, |
| 1:17.1 | CEO and founder of Heritage Capital Management. He's the author of Red Notice and Freezing Order, |
| 1:22.4 | both excellent and lively reeds, and the architect and engine behind the Magnitsky axe. |
| 1:28.2 | He's also, if not Putin's least favorite person, certainly one of the top two or three contenders. |
| 1:33.7 | Bill, thank you for joining me. |
| 1:35.2 | Great to be here. |
| 1:36.4 | You've been on the podcast before, which we always appreciate, but our topic is a bit different today. |
| 1:41.8 | We've been looking at extreme wealth. |
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