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

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We all know of Putin's total disregard for the deaths he is currently responsible for in Ukraine and amongst his own soldiers, but the greed of this evil man, who for years has been robbing Russia's citizens of billions, aided by those in the West, has been a revelation. As Browder and his team tracked the money as it flowed out of Russia through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas, they were shocked to discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was a beneficiary of the crime. I made my pitch for the Magnitsy resolution and concluded, ‘As you can see, there’s no difference between the Russian government and organised crime’. It would be entertaining fiction, but as a true story it’s a warning and a roadmap for fighting back against the waves of crime and corruption emanating from Putin’s Russia and other dictatorships.

Bill Browder's thrilling new book digs deeper into the kleptocratic world enabled and supported by the Russian state, for the benefit of the most powerful and well-connected crooks in Russia and beyond.At least four people Browder knew and worked with on exposing human rights abuses and financial crimes were killed by Russian state security agencies, and two others were nearly killed or maimed. Browder’s true story reads like an international thriller filled with murders, personal vendettas, legal jujitsu, and more. From their perspective, they’d successfully tracked down and arrested an international fugitive wanted by Interpol, which probably didn’t happen every day at this little police station in central Madrid. And as their investigation continues, they uncover an elaborate money laundering scheme of over a trillion dollars, with ties to the very head of the Russian government, who will stop at nothing to threaten Mr. Amid the horrors being reported every day from Ukraine, it also provides a highly readable insight into the true nature of the regime that is responsible for them.

there is no question that Browder’s dogged persistence against a backdrop of undoubted stress and personal courage have made an important contribution in highlighting the failures of contemporary Russia and the west alike, and offered new tools with potential to try to redress them. Lawyers, politicians and the usual useful idiots have all been successfully recruited to the Russian cause, either through financial inducement, bribery, bovine anti-west sentiments, or perhaps worst of all, complacency. Once adopted, however, the Magnitsky law remained mostly unused in the US, and particularly in the UK. This brilliant attorney, Sergei Magnitsky, believed that “Russia was changing for the better and that the rule of law would ultimately protect him. At times the book reads like a John Le Carre or Len Deighton spy thriller from the 1970s and 80s and occasionally I expected George Smiley to appear.In December 2012 President Obama signed into law the Magnitsky Act which had passed Congress with broad bi-partisan support. It is among a crop of excellent recent books about Russia…If its subject matter weren’t so grave, the book could be said to have all the elements of a high-octane drama. We were soon stuck in traffic again, this time in front of the Royal Palace, among a throng of tour buses and schoolchildren.

Be prepared to be shocked as we follow Browder and this colleagues as they “chase the money” in the full knowledge they are being followed and probably targeted by people in Moscow. Held for almost a year without charge, Magnitsky died a few days before he was due to be released – murdered, says Browder, and a number of independent investigators, by prison guards who beat him to death. But putting my queries aside there is no arguing with the bravery of Browder and what he and others have achieved in the face of overwhelming Russian deviousness.This book should be read by all, not just the doubters, the conspiracy theorists or Russian sympathisers. Part of me thinks it's a miracle this guy is still alive, and part of me thinks, you can't possibly kill someone that rich and connected! A description of the scarcely believable evil of Putin and his pals who rob the Russian people on a vast scale and murder anyone who gets in their way.