Russia

[LFC]

The DOJ just snagged a superyacht. I only mention it in case any of you want to bid at the auction.

The Department of Justice has seized its first asset belonging to a “sanctioned individual with close ties to the Russian regime,” Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Monday. At the request of the DOJ, a Spanish court issued an order freezing a superyacht, known as “The Tango,” owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg that is docked in Palma de Mallorca. The DOJ alleges Vekselberg used “U.S. dollar payments through U.S. banks” to buy and maintain the boat, including paying for mooring fees and rooms at a luxury resort in the Maldives. He used shell companies to hide his ownership of The Tango and avoid U.S. bank oversight, prosecutors added. Garland said the $90 million boat would be “forfeited as the proceeds of a crime.” The seizure is part of Task Force KleptoCapture, a U.S. effort to hold individuals accountable for enabling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

[Bact PhD]

Apr 4, 2022 19:24:14 GMT LFC said:

The DOJ just snagged a superyacht. I only mention it in case any of you want to bid at the auction.

The Department of Justice has seized its first asset belonging to a “sanctioned individual with close ties to the Russian regime,” Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Monday. At the request of the DOJ, a Spanish court issued an order freezing a superyacht, known as “The Tango,” owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg that is docked in Palma de Mallorca. The DOJ alleges Vekselberg used “U.S. dollar payments through U.S. banks” to buy and maintain the boat, including paying for mooring fees and rooms at a luxury resort in the Maldives. He used shell companies to hide his ownership of The Tango and avoid U.S. bank oversight, prosecutors added. Garland said the $90 million boat would be “forfeited as the proceeds of a crime.” The seizure is part of Task Force KleptoCapture, a U.S. effort to hold individuals accountable for enabling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

$90 million?? Shucky-darns, I’ve got only $20 million lying around—even at a two-thirds-off “fire sale” price that’s too rich for my blood!

[LFC]

Apr 4, 2022 20:31:15 GMT Bact PhD said:

Apr 4, 2022 19:24:14 GMT LFC said:

The DOJ just snagged a superyacht. I only mention it in case any of you want to bid at the auction.

$90 million?? Shucky-darns, I’ve got only $20 million lying around—even at a two-thirds-off “fire sale” price that’s too rich for my blood!

At $0 I can't even afford to fuel it, especially at today's prices!

[LFC]

Admit it, right-wing Putin fanboys. You backed a psychopathic, homicidal maniac in Putin. (This should be no shock since they backed a psychopathic, wishing he could be homicidal maniac in Trump.)

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. When Russian dictator Vladimir Putin first sent troops to invade Ukraine, the assumption around the world — but especially among those on the right — was that Russia would enjoy a swift and brutal victory over the fledgling democracy. In the U.S., Republicans broke into two camps. Putin fanboys like Donald Trump, Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, and Fox News' Tucker Carlson were practically drooling with glee, declaring Putin was a "genius" acting out of "love," and gearing up a narrative about how Russia's commanding victory was a blow against the decadence bred by democracy. Others were a little more squeamish about openly backing Putin but nonetheless backed the notion that his invasion was proof that authoritarian leaders are manlier, stronger and more effective leaders, especially compared to mewling wimps like President Joe Biden and the Democrats.

Then the unexpected happened: Russia did not conquer Ukraine in a weekend.

Ukrainians fought back — and defied the expectations of both Putin and his Republican supporters. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, got so mad she openly started yelling at Ukraine to just give up. Then images started to pour in of the atrocities committed by Russian forces, really giving lie to authoritarian claims of Putin's moral superiority over the decadent West. It quickly became clear that the right was not as clever as they thought with their assumption that democracy is a house of cards.

Yet, as late as Thursday, Carlson was still at it on his prime time Fox News show in a segment where he brought on far-right British politician Nigel Farage to blame Russia's invasion on "the unnecessary provocation of Vladimir Putin" by American and European efforts to promote democracy in the region. Naturally, Carlson framed this argument as a strike against the elites who want to silence hard truths, because reframing reactionary drivel as rebellion is his one big rhetorical trick.

But then the weekend happened, and while no one should get in the prediction business on something as unstable as the invasion of Ukraine, there is now little doubt that Russia is facing major setbacks, especially in terms of being pushed back in Kyiv. The evidence clearly shows the violence Russian soldiers unleashed on the local population, including committing horrific massacres of civilians. President Joe Biden has declared that Putin is a "war criminal" and called for him to be tried for war crimes. Now even the biggest Putin apologists at home are struggling to argue back in the face of images of dead civilians with their hands tied behind their backs and laying in the mud in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv. Just to underscore how Russia is very much the bad guy here, Putin's government is trying to claim that Ukrainians killed those people, which is easy to disprove and also preposterous.

Putin is making it very hard for the American right these days. Not just for the Putin fanboys, either. He's also making life harder for Republicans who merely want to portray him as stronger and more adept than Biden and the other supposed weaklings of liberal democracy.

So Carlson, as usual, decided to pivot. On Monday, he retreated from the Putin apologia back to his safe zone of hyping the "good news" that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was re-elected. Prior to the Ukrainian invasion, Carlson had been using Orbán as his avatar for his fascist longings. He's repeatedly run segments using Hungary as evidence to his aging right-wing audience that the white nationalist utopia of his dreams is there for the taking, at the low price of abandoning liberal democracy. For now, this fantasy version of the supposedly white idyllic Hungary will be dangled out in front of Fox News viewers as a distraction from the true nature of the ideology Carlson is peddling, visible in the dead bodies rotting in the streets of Bucha.

The piece goes on to talk about the less strident, daddy issue suffering right who didn't directly back the invasion but who repeatedly swooned over Putin's strongman image. So much for strong or even man. He's just a sick, twisted, egomaniac who needs to be put down like a rabid dog.

[LFC]

The oligarchs and even Russians simply working gov't jobs outside of Russia itself may be getting nervous.

Italian firefighters extinguished a blaze set in a brazen dawn arson attack on a lavish villa owned by Vladimir Putin’s top propagandist Vladimir Solovyov early Wednesday.

A fire official confirmed to The Daily Beast that the fire nearly engulfed the villa situated on the flanks of Lake Como, which has been confiscated by Italian officials due to sanctions but which still belongs to the Russian state TV presenter. The villa, with sweeping views over one of Italy’s most idyllic lakes, was undergoing full renovation when it was sequestered. It is Solovyov’s most recent property purchase in northern Italy, and he had been renovating it thanks to COVID-19 bonus payouts for construction projects.

Firefighters say they believe the fire was set when someone tossed burning tires over the villa wall. The damage was not significant, but the message was clear. The fire official said that it was definitely meant as a sign of protest.

Two of Solovyov’s three properties—worth an estimated €8 million—are sequestered. The third, which is said to be in the name of a family member, has not yet been held by Italy’s financial police. Solovyov, 58, was critical of Italy joining the rest of Europe in sanctioning oligarchs in a broadcast of his evening news show in early March.

“For every transaction I brought documents that proved my official salary, income, I did everything,” he whined when it became clear his villas would be sequestered. “I bought them and paid a crazy amount of taxes, I did everything. And suddenly someone decides that I, this journalist, are now on the sanctions list. And immediately they hit my property.”

You're lucky that's all they hit.

[LFC]

This is a great summary on Russia's temporarily successful defense of the ruble. The downside for them is that they're still looking at 20% interest rates and a number of their oil and gas customers pushing to move away from fossil fuels.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 7, 2022 16:06:17 GMT LFC said:

This is a great summary on Russia's temporarily successful defense of the ruble. The downside for them is that they're still looking at 20% interest rates and a number of their oil and gas customers pushing to move away from fossil fuels.

Hmmm dependence on fossil fuels actually fuels a war.  Another reason to aggressively move into some other energy source.  Then we could safely ignore a lot of the Middle Eastern countries.

[LFC]

Apr 7, 2022 16:21:17 GMT goldenvalley said:

Hmmm dependence on fossil fuels actually fuels a war.  Another reason to aggressively move into some other energy source.  Then we could safely ignore a lot of the Middle Eastern countries.

The U.S. military has been trying to tell us for decades that our dependence on autocracies for energy is a national level security risk. The "listen to the generals" GOP seems to have missed hearing that despite the fact they've been told repeatedly.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 7, 2022 17:08:46 GMT LFC said:

Apr 7, 2022 16:21:17 GMT goldenvalley said:

Hmmm dependence on fossil fuels actually fuels a war.  Another reason to aggressively move into some other energy source.  Then we could safely ignore a lot of the Middle Eastern countries.

The U.S. military has been trying to tell us for decades that our dependence on autocracies for energy is a national level security risk. The "listen to the generals" GOP seems to have missed hearing that despite the fact they've been told repeatedly.

Money talks louder than generals do.

[LFC]

Intel suspended business with Russia. They're just the latest chip manufacturer to do so.

Intel, one of the world's largest semiconductor companies, is suspending business operations in Russia "effective immediately," the company announced on Tuesday.

"Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine," the company said in a statement. Intel stopped shipping chips to customers in Russia and Belarus in early March.

Intel said that it is "working to support all of our employees through this difficult situation, including our 1,200 employees in Russia."

Ordinarily, it would be a drastic step for a multinational company like Intel to exit a market the size of Russia. But Western sanctions have made it increasingly difficult for global companies to operate in Russia. Earlier this week, the Biden administration announced broad sanctions on the Russian electronics industry, which presumably includes many of Intel's partners and customers in Russia.

Two of Intel's major competitors, AMD and Nvidia, halted sales of their products in Russia early last month. Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC has also restricted sales in Russia.

The departure of so many tech companies could make it difficult for Russian companies and the Russian government to get access to IT gear at a time when the war is putting new demands on Russian networks.

In March, the IT industry publication Data Center Dynamics noted that the Russian government was seizing spare data center capacity from Western countries that fled Russia:

Russian business publication Kommersant reports that authorities are preparing to buy out all the capacity at commercial data centers (potentially including IT already contracted out), and take over the IT resources of companies that have announced their withdrawal from Russia.

The country has already shown a willingness to take over the assets of departing companies—with McDonald's departing, the restaurants are being relaunched as "Uncle Vanya," a new company with a logo based on the iconic Golden Arches of McDonald’s.

[LFC]

Interesting to see the nations who either support Russia or refuse to denounce them.

The UN General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine.

Of the 193 members of the assembly, 93 voted in favor of suspension as proposed by the United States while 24 voted against and 58 abstained, suggesting weakening international unity against Russia at the United Nations.

It was the second ever suspension of a country from the council. Libya was the first, in 2011.

Suspension required two-thirds of the votes for and against; the abstentions did not count.

The countries voting against included China, a Moscow ally which has steadfastly abstained from criticizing the invasion. Others were Iran, the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan and communist Cuba, as well as Russia itself, Belarus and Syria.

Despite pressure from Moscow for a no vote, several African countries only abstained, such as South Africa and Senegal. Also abstaining were Brazil, Mexico and India.

[LFC]

Marine LePen is a full-throated Putin supporter.

On Thursday, writing for The Daily Beast, A. Craig Copetas criticized Front National leader and far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen for her ongoing affinity for Vladimir Putin, as he lays waste to Ukraine and commits increasingly brutal war crimes.

"Le Pen styles herself a populist and bristles at being called a fascist. But all the perfume in France can’t marinate Le Pen’s stench," wrote Copetas. "Neither can the French justice system, which eight years ago ruled that it’s legal to describe her as a fascist. 'If the term ‘fascist’ can have insulting connotations when used outside of any political context or if accompanied by other demeaning terms, it has, on the other hand, no insulting character when employed between political opponents on a political subject,' the judge declared. The classical fascism of the 1930s nowadays arrives in many shapes, sizes, colors, and countries, all of which Le Pen continues to camouflage with worthless guarantees that her party of hobgoblins in designer suits are against racism and forcible suppression of the opposition."

Le Pen, who has previously been charged under French hate speech laws, has made clear she wants to pull France out of the European Union and NATO — and has made it clear she would rather the country be in Putin's orbit.

"Le Pen repeated her support for Putin’s assault on Crimea and her opposition to EU sanctions in response to the annexation. If elected, Le Pen pledged in 2017, 'I would envisage lifting the sanctions quite quickly,'" wrote Copetas. "She became a full-time cast member of the Kremlin’s horror show 38 days after Putin invaded Ukraine, telling a French primetime TV news broadcast on March 31 that Putin 'could become an ally of France again' if the war ends. 'Russia’s not going anywhere,' she explained to the French public broadcaster France 2. 'I’ve always said that a great power can be an ally in a number of situations.'"

"The central horror of the Putin-Le Pen combo is the risk of a toxic cascade effect on the world’s democracies and the future of Ukraine’s hard-fought battle to survive," Copetas concluded. "Had Hemingway been around to chronicle Putin’s fiesta of fascism, the book most certainly would have been titled The Scum Also Rises."

[indy]

I wonder what this means in the longer term for investment in Russia? Will they shy away for ten or twenty years?

[pnwguy]

"I can now have my very own McPutin's franchise, thanks to Uncle Vladimir. Borscht shakes on the house for everyone!"

[LFC]

Apr 8, 2022 16:19:46 GMT indy said:

I wonder what this means in the longer term for investment in Russia? Will they shy away for ten or twenty years?

Another case of short-term thinking by the supposed genius dictator. At every turn he's unwinding Russia's economic gains of the past ten or twenty year to supposedly staunch the bleeding but I don't see this as staunching much of anything. All it's doing is raising the risk that corporations and nations see in dealing with him.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 8, 2022 17:38:44 GMT LFC said:

Apr 8, 2022 16:19:46 GMT indy said:

I wonder what this means in the longer term for investment in Russia? Will they shy away for ten or twenty years?

Another case of short-term thinking by the supposed genius dictator. At every turn he's unwinding Russia's economic gains of the past ten or twenty year to supposedly staunch the bleeding but I don't see this as staunching much of anything. All it's doing is raising the risk that corporations and nations see in dealing with him.

He's making sure oil and gas are the only products Russia can produce.  If he thought he'd take over Ukrainian agriculture, he's wrong. The Black Sea ports being damaged are probably the centers for shipping grain. And he's pissed off so many Ukrainians that they'll either mine the fields or salt them to keep Russians from planting anything.

[pnwguy]

Apr 8, 2022 17:50:30 GMT goldenvalley said:

I'm more afraid they will be "salted" by radiation from some tactical nukes when Putin gets tired of losing men and equipment in his defeat.

Ukraine needs some Red Sparrows in Moscow to take out the psycho from within.  Can we loan them Jennifer Lawrence? 

[LFC]

Mass murder or money? The National Association of Realtors (NAR, awfully close to NRA) knows which they care about most.

The powerful real estate lobby appears to be siding with oligarchs in opposing tougher new laws that would prevent them from hiding their assets in U.S. property purchases.

Even before Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine Washington lawmakers were crafting legislation that would shred the secrecy veil that hides the identities of foreign nationals who purchase billions of dollars of U.S. real estate every year. Momentum for those reforms only has grown since Russia's invasion and the worldwide focus on seizing oligarchs' assets.

Politico reports that House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) soon plans to introduce legislation to strengthen anti-corruption laws related to the industry. And Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), is pressuring the Treasury unit known as FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), to craft strict rules to cut down on money laundering through property holdings.

“American real estate can’t be a dark repository for oligarch money,” Whitehouse told Politico.

But the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the industry’s biggest lobbying group, is resisting powerful reforms, instead calling for “tailored reforms that address specific issues,” according to spokesperson Patrick Newton.

“This approach focuses on illegal activity while minimizing any negative impact on the real estate economy, which makes up nearly one-fifth of the overall U.S. economy,” Newton said. “NAR has confidence that targeted and effective policy will prevail in the rule-making process.”

NAR has a huge stake in the issue. According to its own industry research, foreigners made up 8.6 percent of all commercial buyers in 2021 and 59 percent of commercial real estate transactions in the U.S. that included buyers from overseas involved all-cash purchases between 2016 and 2020.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 11, 2022 19:09:03 GMT LFC said:

Mass murder or money? The National Association of Realtors (NAR, awfully close to NRA) knows which they care about most.

The powerful real estate lobby appears to be siding with oligarchs in opposing tougher new laws that would prevent them from hiding their assets in U.S. property purchases.

Even before Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine Washington lawmakers were crafting legislation that would shred the secrecy veil that hides the identities of foreign nationals who purchase billions of dollars of U.S. real estate every year. Momentum for those reforms only has grown since Russia's invasion and the worldwide focus on seizing oligarchs' assets.

Politico reports that House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) soon plans to introduce legislation to strengthen anti-corruption laws related to the industry. And Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), is pressuring the Treasury unit known as FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), to craft strict rules to cut down on money laundering through property holdings.

“American real estate can’t be a dark repository for oligarch money,” Whitehouse told Politico.

But the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the industry’s biggest lobbying group, is resisting powerful reforms, instead calling for “tailored reforms that address specific issues,” according to spokesperson Patrick Newton.

“This approach focuses on illegal activity while minimizing any negative impact on the real estate economy, which makes up nearly one-fifth of the overall U.S. economy,” Newton said. “NAR has confidence that targeted and effective policy will prevail in the rule-making process.”

NAR has a huge stake in the issue. According to its own industry research, foreigners made up 8.6 percent of all commercial buyers in 2021 and 59 percent of commercial real estate transactions in the U.S. that included buyers from overseas involved all-cash purchases between 2016 and 2020.

Senator Whitehouse is becoming a hero of mine.  He doggedly searches out the signs of big money influencing policy, the identity of Supreme Court justices nominees, and he makes noise about it in concise language.  Media never bothers to pick up on what he's saying so this info never gets out to the public.

[jackd]

Do they specify what "tailored reforms that address specific issues" they could support?

[goldenvalley]

Apr 11, 2022 22:09:45 GMT jackd said:

Do they specify what "tailored reforms that address specific issues" they could support?

Of course not.  But I can see one that allows anyone or any organization that buys real estate to identify themselves simply as "Organization that Supports Real Estate Values (OSREV)" and makes it clear that such organizations can buy whatever they can afford and that the sellers get to keep the money without scrutiny by any governmental, financial, or nasty nonprofits that claim to be organized to serve the public benefit would probably be okay with them.

[jackd]

Snark noted.

[LFC]

I suspect even an oligarch would feel the pinch of losing $7B.

Billions of dollars in assets thought to belong to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich have reportedly been seized in the Channel Islands. Search warrants were executed at premises in Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands, on Tuesday, with the Royal Court issuing an order to freeze “assets understood to be valued in excess of US$7 billion which are suspected to be connected to Mr Abramovich and which are either located in Jersey or owned by Jersey incorporated entities,” the Bailiwick Express reports. The Chelsea FC owner was named as the most wealthy resident of the islands back in 2018. Now, however, he is under EU and U.K. sanctions in connection with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

[LFC]

Putin's propaganda machine is cranking out tons of bullshit and victimhood as you'd expect. This is a badly faked video.

Pro-Kremlin Russian news outlets have begun pushing a phony BBC video to try to pin the blame for a deadly rocket attack in Kramatorsk on Ukrainian forces. The footage, which shows the aftermath of the strike on the Kramatorsk train station that left more than 50 fleeing Ukrainians dead over the weekend, has been heavily doctored to feature the BBC logo and the news network’s traditional overlaid text. But the text itself—riddled with style errors and awkward wording—appears to have been pulled straight from pro-Kremlin Telegram channels pushing the narrative that the missile used in the attack actually belonged to Ukraine. Several Russian news outlets began spreading the video as authentic BBC reporting on Wednesday, claiming “Western media” had confirmed the Kremlin’s version of events. Riafan.ru, an outlet that has been linked to Russia’s infamous troll factory and Vladimir Putin crony Yevgeny Prighozhin, was among those to claim the BBC had backed up Russia’s claim Ukraine was to blame for the attack.

Then there's the faux outrage over a Ukrainian actress doing a video that threatens Putin's killers.

Vladimir Putin, speaking alongside Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during their joint press conference on Tuesday, called the situation in Ukraine “a tragedy,” failing to mention his direct responsibility for initiating the invasion. As always, Russian state media has been playing along, portraying the devastating consequences of Russia’s war of aggression as entirely Ukraine’s fault.

Russian casualties are rarely mentioned by Kremlin-controlled media. “Everything is covered in corpses of Ukrainian soldiers,” said host Vladimir Soloviev during Monday’s broadcast of his show, The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev. There was no condemnation of the cost in human lives wrought by their leader’s unprovoked war of aggression.

Instead, state media is aghast over a recently released shock video, in which an actress threatens Russian invaders with certain death. Though they appear unperturbed by the scenes of carnage out of Bucha or Mariupol, or the bombings of peaceful Ukrainian cities, the Kremlin’s propagandists were triggered by a fictitious portrayal of revenge against an actor playing the part of a Russian occupant.

In the video, the actress—dressed in an embroidered gown and a national Ukrainian headdress—threatens invading troops with retaliation for the deaths of war victims in Bucha, Irpin, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa and Mariupol. She predicts they would never return home to Russia, and makes a hand motion pretending to slit the throat of a male actor with a sickle, off-camera.

The clip sent shockwaves throughout Russian airwaves.

“This video proves that Ukraine is the new ISIS,” Soloviev exclaimed, leaving out the fact that ISIS videos graphically show real killings and not mere reenactments.

On Monday, Olga Kovitidi, member of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building, told the newspaper Izvestia that the clip is “demonic.” She claimed that “Ukraine has become a toxic state,” and added that “the video once again confirms the correctness of the special military operation carried out by Russia.” In an incredible display of gaslighting, Kovitidi used a reaction to Russia’s brutal invasion as justification for starting the war.

Putin continues to blow smoke up Russia's collective ass.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin hailed his “brave” and “effective” troops in Ukraine on Tuesday, even as social-media posts surfaced showing the Russian military suffered yet another setback after more than 40 days of war.

The Russian leader vowed that his “noble” war against Ukraine would be successful and defiantly said his country could not be isolated from the rest of the world.

“There is no doubt that the goals and tasks of the operation in Ukraine will be fulfilled,” he said, claiming “confrontation with the growing anti-Russian forces in Ukraine was inevitable” and only “a question of time.”

“The Russian Armed Forces have acted bravely, efficiently, and effectively in the course of the special military operation in Ukraine, using the most contemporary kinds of weapons,” he said.

“What we are doing is helping people, saving people, on the one hand, and on the other hand—we are simply taking measures to ensure the security of Russia itself. It’s evident that we had no other choice, this is the right decision,” he said, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.

His glowing assessment comes amid reports that another high-ranking military official was killed in Ukraine.

Lt. Col. Dibir Dibirovich Magomedovich, a Dagestan native, was killed on April 9, according to a now-deleted post on the VK page of a Russian military academy.

[LFC]

Interesting story about an ex-American banker who was screwed by rampant Russian corruption and has pushed back. He now has a book out. Putin has been trying to use Interpol to get his hands on him for years.

Bill Browder was headed for breakfast at his Madrid hotel when two men with shirts reading “Policia Nacional” suddenly approached him and took him into custody on a Russian arrest warrant.

Browder, a financier who had once been the largest foreign investor in Russia, had long been a thorn in Moscow’s side before he was detained that day in May 2018. Years earlier, Browder had discovered that many of the companies he had invested in were being robbed by oligarchs and corrupt officials. Unwilling to let this fraud go unchallenged, Browder, as detailed in his 2015 bestseller Red Notice, decided to fight back. He hired a local lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky, who helped Browder uncover a multi-million dollar tax fraud involving Russian officials that went all the way up to President Vladimir Putin. Angered by the revelations, the Kremlin accused Magnitsky of fraud himself. He was detained and ultimately murdered in prison in 2009.

Horrified by what had happened, Browder publicized the case and lobbied for what became known as the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 U.S. law which allows for the freezing of assets of Russian human rights violators. In retaliation, the Russian government put Browder on trial in absentia, found him guilty of tax evasion, and issued what is known as an Interpol Red Notice for his arrest. Although several of these notices were eventually rejected by Interpol, that didn’t stop the Spanish police from attempting to arrest him on yet another warrant in Madrid that day. It was possibly the scariest moment in Browder’s life.

“When they shoved me in the back of the police car, I started to think that maybe these weren’t real police officers at all but Russian kidnappers,” Browder told The Daily Beast. “I imagined that perhaps they just bought some uniforms and stole a police car and would drive me to some airstrip out of town, bundle me onto a private jet and take me to Moscow when they would kill me like they did my lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.”

Luckily for Browder, none of this happened. As detailed in his new book, Freezing Order, the warrant was once again declared invalid by Interpol—they have all been rejected for being political in nature—and Browder was released from custody. “What saved me was Twitter,” says Browder in the book. “My tweets [which he had been able to send while in custody] had generated hundreds of phone calls to Interpol and the Spanish authorities who soon realized the mess they’d waltzed into.”

But that hasn’t stopped the death threats, the kidnapping warnings and the ongoing Russian harassment, including being tried in absentia on two occasions, which, Browder told The Daily Beast, is “very much like living in a war zone. After years and years, you become desensitized to it. I’ve been living under threat from Russia for 12 years, and it’s physically impossible to be in a state of high alert for all that time.”

Not a shock but there are details about how Trump and Jared were involved in potentially helping the corruption along, including potentially sending Browder to Russia to be murdered.

Browder estimates that since Putin came to power, dirty money moved through Western banks has amounted to $1 trillion or more. Which makes the fact that the Magnitsky Act has now become law in 34 countries—and has been used against everyone from Saudi assassins to Myanmar generals—a real problem for Russia and its oligarchs. So much so, in fact, that at a 2018 summit, when Trump asked Putin if he would extradite 12 Russian officials for U.S. crimes, the Russian leader’s response was that America should reciprocate, saying “for instance, we can bring up Mr. Browder in this particular case.”

That didn’t happen. Still, Trump gave an initially enthusiastic response: “I think that’s an incredible offer,” he said, which he later walked back on. Adding to that, there was the fact that members of Trump’s entourage—Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort—had met with a former Russian counterintelligence officer and a Russian lawyer to discuss the Magnitsky Act. So it doesn’t seem like hyperbole when Browder states in the book that “the Magnitsky Act was not only the driving force behind Putin’s official policy toward the West, but was also behind his audacious intervention in the U.S. political process.”