Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There’s a quote on the cover that says that it reads like a thriller, I can agree with that, it’s a real page-turner. Browder is a skilled writer who keeps you wanting more. There’s the classic trope, movie like, whereby the inaugural chapter is set in the future and ends on a cliff hanger, to be continued much later on.

I learned about the Katyn principle, where the Soviets committed a massacre and to cover it up, issued repeated denials and manufactured evidence. Putin has made this machinery more powerful instead of dismantling it. The Russian response to the so called “Browder deception”, is predictable. Denials, misinformation, straight out of the Soviet handbook. They even teach this to the kids in Russia. It is obvious the Russian state is at fault here. The red notice against Browder has never been enforced and Russia’s automatic right to issue red notices has been revoked. I find it highly unlikely that Browder would be able to fool the US government, the EU and Interpol. Putin of course has a history of murdering and imprisoning his opponents.

Browder is quite the badass. He moved to post-Soviet Russia, made an absolute killing on the stock market, bagged top investors, took on Putin/Oligarchs and caused a notorious Russian beauty to melt her heart for him. I was going to bust his chops for referring to women as “beautiful” or “pretty” umpteen times, but there was an occasion where he referred to a man has handsome so I don’t think he was sexualising the women. Alas, it seems as though the videos on the Russian Untouchables website are no longer available. An important lesson he learns early in his childhood is that, the only way to stop bullies is to stand up to them.

It is of course sad to read that Putin et al have stolen billions from the Russian people and plundered it’s natural resources. His minions also pocket millions to do his bidding. One can only hope that one day the web of lies and corruption will be fully exposed.

My admiration for John McCain grew, once I learned that he was a co-sponsor of the Sergei Magnitsky act. Who knows, without him the bill may have never been enshrined in law or may have taken significantly longer. The details of Sergei’s ordeal are harrowing and although the act will bring some solace to the victims, I hope there will be a global Magnitsky act one day. Where perpetrators of human rights abuse will be sanctioned irrespective of country.

Quotes

‘Time for the titty-twisters, Billy Browder! Time for the titty-twisters!’

It was all a show, a Potemkin court. This is Russia today. A stuffy room presided over by a corrupt judge, policed by unthinking guards, with lawyers who are there just to give the appearance of a real trial, and with no defendant in the cage. A place where lies reign supreme. A place where two and two is still five, white is still black, and up is still down. A place where convictions are certain, and guilt a given. Where a foreigner can be convicted in absentia of crimes he did not commit.

A place where an innocent man who was murdered by the state, a man whose only crime was loving his country too much, can be made to suffer from beyond the grave.

This is Russia today.

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