Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Author: Bill Browder Rating: 4/5 Finished: June 11, 2026

This book was a recommendation from a friend at a recent wedding. In the first part of the book the author describes how he found investment opportunities in 1990s Russia that helped him create one of the most profitable hedge funds at the time. In the second part of the book he details how he seeks justice for a murdered friend after his fund clashes with the Russian authorities.

Bill Browder was born in the US, then moved to London in his twenties in 1989 to work for BCG and shortly after for Salomon Brothers . Through his family history he had an affinity for Eastern Europe and wanted to find a job that allowed him to work there. While working on an advisory project for BCG he realised that many former state-owned companies in post-Soviet Eastern Europe and Russia were severely undervalued. On his investment in Sidanco he writes:

This was a remarkable discovery. Everyone knew that Lukoil was a steal, since it controlled the same amount of oil and gas as British Petroleum but was ten times cheaper. Now here was Sidanco, sitting on a bit less oil than Lukoil, but not much, only it was six times cheaper than Lukoil. In other words, Sidanco was sixty times cheaper than BP!. […] On 14 October 1997, BP announced they were buying […] shares in Sidanco for a 600 per cent premium to the price we had paid a year earlier. It was a home run.

By buying stocks in these companies and then demanding reforms for better corporate governance and shareholder rights, his fund Hermitage Capital Management , generated very high returns between 1996 and 2007 and grew its $25 million seed investment to $4 billion. One of his most lucrative investments was in Gazprom where he subsequently uncovered systematic stealing of assets by its management. (Ironically he showed that only 10% of Gazprom’s assets were stolen, not the 99% market view.) After Putin fired Gazprom’s CEO Rem Vyakhirev and the new management recovered stolen assets, the stock surged “Not 100 per cent - one hundred times.”

The book shows the chaotic transition of Russia into a capitalistic society under Boris Yeltsin and how Browder and well-connected Russian politicians and businessmen could take advantage of it. Browder describes three ways in which the oligarchy formed and could quickly amass a lot of wealth:

Arbitrage through the voucher privatisation. The government distributed vouchers to the whole Russian population which allowed them to acquire shares of more than 12000 companies at auctions (and at a steep discount. Browder writes that the vouchers implied a value of $10B for the whole Russian economy!). However, the population was ill-informed and often so poor that they sold a majority of those vouchers cheaply. Those vouchers were then accumulated by a few people, often the old management of those companies or organised Russian gangs. There are also stories of insiders physically blocking access to the auctions to be able to bid for the shares without competition.
Stealing of company assets. Management of the newly privatised companies were sometimes able to sell some of the company’s assets, e.g. a gas field, at a steep discount to themselves or relatives. Widespread corruption helped those individuals to avoid scrutiny by accounting firms, police, or judges.
Russian raiders. Criminal gangs would take over existing Russian corporations through falsified ownership documents by colluding with local law enforcement and judges.

At the height of Browder’s financial success in 2007, he becomes a victim of Russian raiders and at the same time the Kremlin decides to investigate him. This ultimately leads to the death of his advisor Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison and an Interpol red notice for Browder himself. Deeply affected by his friend’s death, Browder seeks justice and starts lobbying the American Senate and House of Representatives to pass a visa ban and asset freeze for Russians implicated in the Magnitsky case. In 2012 President Obama signed the Magnitsky Act into law which initially sanctioned 18 Russian individuals and which has since been extended to global scope. Inspired by this law, the EU followed in 2020 by introducing the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime .

Both parts of the book give a good insight into the 1990s Russian economy and later in the process of US Senate lobbying. The book also nicely complements Navalny’s description of Russia during that time and later in prison in Patriot . In fact Navalny briefly features in Browder’s story since he helped lobby for the Magnitsky Act.

For completeness there are also critical reports about the truthfulness of the story. Read this SPIEGEL investigation for more details.

Patriot: A Memoir

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Author: Alexei Navalny Rating: 4/5 Finished: March 30, 2026

This book appeared in many recommendation lists in 2025. I finally read it after my wife finished it. Navalny’s memoir is split into three parts. In the first part he describes growing up in Russia in the 80s/90s. In the second part he describes how he begins his investigations into corruption among the Russian political and business elite and the third part is written during his time in prison.

It’s interesting how he experienced the fall of the USSR in the 90s and how he explains the hope in his community that a new and open Russia could deliver the same prosperity to its population as the West. He illustrates how the prevailing system of corruption is able to divert the huge income from natural resources and former government companies away from the population and into the accounts of a few well-connected businessmen, their families, and shell companies. After Navalny is first poisoned and then, upon return to Russia, imprisoned, the book style changes to diary form. He is detailing his daily life in different Russian prisons until his death in February 2024 ( poisoned with epibatidine ). Reading the diary entries, I was impressed how stoically he endured his situation in prison (lack of food, lack of mind stimulation, erratic and arbitrary rules to follow) and how he maintained a positive mindset about his situation and even the future of Russia.

Russia on staticnotes.org

Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice

Patriot: A Memoir