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

As the author, Bill Browder narrates this nonfictional account of his quest for justice in the aftermath of the murder of Sergei Magnitsky. Browder ran the Hermitage Hedge Fund in Russia, which was the world’s best-performing fund in 1997. To protect his clients’ investments, he used the media to expose the corruption of Russian companies with ties to the state. As a result, Putin expelled Browder from Russia in 2005. By this time, Browder had amassed millions of dollars legally via his investments in Russia. Later, the Russian government raided his company’s offices and those of his attorneys and stole documents that were used to fraudulently transfer ownership of the Hermitage Fund’s companies. Magnitsky, Browder’s attorney in Moscow, discovered that these companies then stole $230 million in the form of a Russian tax refund—the exact amount of taxes that Browder paid when the fund was shut down in Russia. The Russian government then retaliated against Magnitsky, arresting him and murdering him in custody.

This book tells the story of Browder’s efforts to get justice for Magnitsky. He seeks to use current laws on money laundering and to create new laws—named after Magnitsky—to freeze the assets of human rights violators and ban them from obtaining visas (38).