The Trawl Meets Sir Bill Browder
The Trawl
Jemma Forte & Marina Purkiss
4.7 • 867 Ratings
🗓️ 19 April 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Trawl sits down with Sir Bill Browder, the man Vladimir Putin would very much prefer stayed quiet. From exposing corruption at the heart of the Kremlin to spearheading the global Magnitsky sanctions, Browder’s story is part financial thriller, part political crusade. He joins The Trawl to talk oligarchs, accountability, and why the fight against kleptocracy is far from over.
In the first half, Jemma and Marina dive into Bill's extraordinary life story from the wild west of post-Soviet Russia, to exposing corruption among powerful oligarchs, being expelled from the country, and the devastating death of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. It’s a deeply personal account of risk, loss, and a relentless pursuit of justice that led to the creation of the Magnitsky sanctions.
In the second half, they shift to present day and unpack the current geopolitical moment. From Russia’s global strategy and the war in Ukraine to questions around Western sanctions, disinformation, and political influence in the UK, Browder helps make sense of an increasingly unstable world and what it all means for democracy.
It’s a conversation that moves from the intensely personal to the globally political and it's one you won’t want to miss.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | They wanted to get him to sign a false confession. They would be like, look, all you have to do is say that this crime never happened or that Bill Browder did this crime. And what they didn't anticipate was that for him, the idea of perjuring himself was more painful than any kind of physical discomfort they inflicted on him. I'm with an account. |
| 0:32.1 | Hello and welcome to the Trawl meets. I'm Gemma Forte. |
| 0:38.3 | And I'm Marina Perkins, and on the Trawl meets, Gemma and I get to chat with someone we admire and find interesting. |
| 0:42.8 | We discuss political topics they're passionate about, find out what makes them tick, |
| 0:48.5 | and determine what level of despair they have or haven't reached in terms of the state of the world. |
| 0:50.8 | Today's guest is extraordinary. |
| 0:55.2 | His books about his life read like a mixture of a John Grisham thriller and the Born Identity. He co-founded Russian-based Hermitage Capital, one of the world's biggest hedge |
| 1:01.1 | funds. At its height, the fund managed roughly $4 to $4.5 billion. However, in 2005, |
| 1:07.8 | having pissed off the Russian government, he was denied entry to the country and declared |
| 1:12.6 | a threat to national security. Why? Because he'd exposed corruption. Corruption, which benefited |
| 1:19.8 | some of the wealthiest and most dangerous oligarchs. And then he angered someone else you probably |
| 1:25.7 | don't want to be on the wrong side of, Putin. |
| 1:28.4 | So, trawlers, if ever you think you've had a stressful day at the office, this excerpt from his |
| 1:33.0 | book read Notice might bring perspective. As I sat there, I thought, I am being pursued by the |
| 1:39.8 | Russian secret police and there's nothing I can do about it. I can't file a complaint with them and I can't |
| 1:45.5 | request my case files. They are the secret police. Worse, they have access to every tool imaginable, |
| 1:52.6 | both legitimate and illegitimate. The FSB doesn't just issue arrest warrants and extradition |
| 1:58.4 | requests. It dispatches assassins. Welcome to the troll, |
| 2:03.5 | Sir William Browder. Hello. And do we call you Bill or William? Or sir? I think you should |
| 2:10.2 | call me Bill, but thank you for that dramatic introduction. It was dramatic. Well, your life is |
| 2:16.1 | dramatic or has been dramatic. I don't know how you're still |
| 2:19.4 | standing, quite frankly. Your resilience is extraordinary. I mean, I actually do think it's a huge |
... |
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