Why Vladimir Putin wants millionaire CEO Bill Browder ‘dead’

For years, Bill Browder has been on a mission to bring down Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now, he says his life is in danger.

Millionaire CEO Bill Browder once counted Vladimir Putin as one of his closest allies in Russia – but today, he’s the president’s number one enemy, and fears for his life.

In the 1990s, the American-born co-founder of hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management made a killing investing in Russia.

But everything changed in the noughties, when the 57-year-old became determined to expose the corruption of Russian companies and oligarchs – and named names in the process, sparking assassination concerns.

His mission also caught the attention of Mr Putin, and in 2005 Mr Browder was refused entry to Russia, deported to the UK, where he is now based, and named as a threat to Russia’s national security.

Then, in 2007, Hermitage Capital’s offices in Moscow were raided along with Mr Browder’s law firm, Firestone Duncan.

American-born British financier and political activist Bill Browder claims Vladimir Putin wants him dead. Picture: Tolga Akmen/AFP

Mr Browder appointed Moscow lawyer Sergei Magnitsky to investigate the raid, and he discovered that seized documents had been used by a number of government officials to take over several companies belonging to the hedge fund, which landed them a fraudulent $US230 million ($A320m) tax refund.

Mr Magnitsky’s discovery led to him being thrown in prison, where he was badly beaten and eventually died in 2009 at the age of just 37.

From that moment on, Mr Browder was hellbent on revenge against Russian corruption and Mr Putin himself, and he eventually managed to get the Magnitsky Act passed by then-US President Barack Obama – a law designed to punish Russians responsible for human rights breaches.

But this vendetta sparked outrage from the Russian president, with Mr Browder regularly referring to himself as Russia’s public enemy number one, and claiming that Mr Putin wants him dead.

In a Vanity Fair article from late 2018, reporter Marie Brenner claimed that Mr Browder – who is reportedly worth upwards of $US100 million – “remains a marked man”.

“He knows that over the last four years at least 14 Putin detractors have died in suspicious ways in the UK alone,” she wrote.

“Nonetheless, his thirst for vengeance has not been slaked.”

Vladimir Putin was once Bill Browder’s closest Russian ally. Picture: Handout/Russian Presidential Press Office/AFP

At the time, Mr Browder told the publication Mr Putin’s weaknesses could eventually lead to his downfall.

“Putin has no ideology whatsoever. Putin is pedestrian. All he wants is money and to hurt his enemies. He is straightforward. That is what makes him so vulnerable,” he said, vowing to “make [corrupt oligarchs and their enablers] pay dearly for what they have done”.

Now that Russia is in the midst of a brutal invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, Mr Browder has become an even bigger thorn in his nemesis’ side, calling on world leaders to impose even tougher sanctions on Russia in the hope of hitting Mr Putin where it really hurts.

Last month, he told Fox News that countries must impose “real devastating costs” on Mr Putin “for doing what he’s done” and that the best way to achieve that goal was “to go after his money” – and that of “the 50 or so oligarchs who hold his money in the west and freeze that money”.

People are helped out of a damaged building of a children's hospital following a Russian air strike in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Picture: Handout/National Police of Ukraine/AFP

He’s also been prolific on Twitter, denouncing the “evil war in Ukraine” and calling for various tough repercussions such as “disconnect(ing) 100% of Russian banks from SWIFT”, and the “need to close every possible loophole for Russian oligarchs to evade sanctions”.

But that renewed attack on Mr Putin and his allies has not gone unnoticed, with Mr Browder recently telling the UK Telegraph the threats against his life had increased since the invasion began.

“I’ve increased my own security since the invasion. For obvious reasons I can’t go into details, but they have become more rigorous based on the increased risk,” Mr Browder told the publication.

The invasion has sparked global protests. Picture: Sebastien Salom-Gomis/AFP

“In the past, Putin always kept one foot in the civilised world and one foot in the criminal world. He liked to attend the G20 and the International Olympic Committee on one hand, and then organise the assassination of his enemies on the other. It was his foot in the civilised world that probably kept me alive,” he explains.

“Now that he’s put both feet in the criminal world, and there are already huge sanctions against him, his incentive not to kill me has diminished dramatically.”