Red Notice

By Bill Browder

416 pages

Published in 2015 by Simon & Schuster

Red Notice was the March selection for the Mules. I was in Nicaragua (for the ceremony inaugurating the new facilities at FunLimon), so I wasn’t able to attend the meeting. But I sent this short review of the book to my fellow Mules:

As Bob S. predicted, this book changed the way I think about Putin and Putin’s Russia.

Browder made a convincing case that Russia operates as a kleptocracy, as he calls it. I also appreciated the insight he had into aspects of highly centralized governments, particularly Socialist/Communist governments. How it creates an insane level of bureaucracy and, more importantly, how it gradually changes the culture – deeply, including what becomes the national personality. Two thumbs up!

Browder’s journey started as the child of Communist parents on Chicago’s South Side, where, in order to rebel, he decided on a career as a Capitalist. He went to Stanford Business School… and from there to the world of US hedge funds… and from there to Moscow, where he made a fortune buying up super-underpriced companies that were being privatized.

The second part of the book is about how the early support he got from Putin disappeared after Putin became partners with the Russian oligarchy that controlled the cash flow from the privatization of those companies, and how that ended in his banishment (he was deported to the UK) and the imprisonment and murder of Sergei Magnitsky, one of the lawyers that worked for him in Russia.

[While in the UK, Browder’s Russia-based offices were raided. While investigating the purpose of the raids, Magnitsky discovered large-scale fraud and theft by Russian officials. After testifying against them, he was arrested. His death in prison in 2009, after 11 months in police custody, caused an international outcry (he was allegedly beaten to death) and led to the signing of the Magnitsky Act by President Obama. The act – formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 – authorizes the US government to impose sanctions against human rights offenders, freeze their assets, and ban them from the country.]

The third part of the book is about how, according to one reviewer, Browder, having “glimpsed the heart of darkness… embarked on an unrelenting quest for justice in Sergei’s name, exposing the towering cover-up that leads right up to Putin.”

Many readers, including some of my fellow Mules, objected to Browder’s view of himself as a crusader for justice. That’s a fair criticism. (You can decide for yourself.) But the book is a page-turner. (Browder claims that if you read just one page, you will not be able to put it down.) And it does provide convincing evidence of Putin as the leader, albeit a very popular leader, of a band of thieves.

Critical Reviews  

* “Red Notice is a real-life political thriller about an American financier in the Wild East of Russia, the murder of his principled young tax attorney, and his dangerous mission to expose the Kremlin’s corruption.” (Goodreads)

* “Bill Browder, the unexpected hero and author of this suspenseful memoir, is no ordinary investment banker…. It is fascinating to follow him as he navigates the kleptocratic Russian economy.” (Boston Globe)

* “[A] riveting account of Browder’s journey through the early years of Russian Capitalism…. ‘Russian stories never have happy endings,’ Magnitsky tells Browder, in the book’s most memorable line. Perhaps not, but they do have inspiring ones.” (Washington Post) 

* “[Browder’s] freewheeling, snappy book describes the meteoric rise, and disastrous fall, of a buccaneer Capitalist who crossed the wrong people and paid a steep price…. The high stakes make for a zesty tale.” (New York Times)

Interesting Facts 

* There is a soon-to-be released movie starring Dwayne Johnson that is titled Red Notice. But though Browder had, and probably has, ambitions to make his book into a movie… this isn’t it.

 * The term “red notice” refers to the system of color-coded notices that Interpol uses to share alerts and requests for information with law enforcement agencies worldwide. A red notice is a request to locate and provisionally arrest an individual pending extradition. An orange notice is a warning about an imminent threat to public safety. A green notice provides intelligence about individuals who have committed criminal offenses and are likely to repeat them in other countries. And so on…

* Among many other awards, Browder was recognized in 2017 by GQ as one of the magazine’s Men of the Year for his defiance of Vladimir Putin.

 Here’s Browder in 2015 talking about this book to Russian Studies students at Oxford University…