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

Bill Browder

Apr 2022 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Following his explosive New York Times bestseller Red Notice, Bill Browder returns with another “explosive and compulsive” (Stephen Fry) thriller chronicling how he became Vladimir Putin’s number one enemy by exposing Putin’s campaign to steal and launder hundreds of millions of dollars and kill anyone who stands in his way.

When Bill Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail, Browder made it his life’s mission to go after his killers and make sure they faced justice. The first step was to uncover who was behind the $230 million tax refund scheme that Magnitsky was killed over. 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 discover that Vladimir Putin himself was a beneficiary of the crime.

As law enforcement agencies began freezing the money, Putin retaliated. He and his cronies set up honey traps, hired process servers to chase Browder through cities, murdered more of his Russian allies, and enlisted some of America’s top lawyers and politicians to bring him down. Putin will stop at nothing to protect his money. As Freezing Order reveals, Browder’s campaign to expose Putin’s corruption was a factor behind Russia’s intervention in the 2016 US presidential election.

At once a financial caper, an international adventure, and a passionate plea for justice, Freezing Order is “mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand the tactics of modern autocracy,” (Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Twilight of Democracy). It is a stirring morality tale about how one man can take on one the world’s most ruthless villains—and win.

Ratings and reviews

I could not put this book down. Having read Red Nptice. few years ago made me at least as interested in this book. Bill Browder tells the story of his work in Russia and the death of his friend Sergei Magnitsky and his work to uncover the huge money laundering scheme by the oligarchs of Russia. The story is believable and what happened to him on so many fronts is appalling. I highly recommend this book to anyone who thinks that Russia has no hand in the government of the USA. Putin is a crook and hates Browder for all the countries he has gotten to pass the Magnitsky law. This is a true story and it will curl your hair.I cannot wait for the next book.

The fact that this book is true makes it all the more terrifying. In it, Mr. Browder explains how Putin's thugs left a trail of dead bodies, outrageous lies, and devastated families in order to keep the world from learning that he has stolen more money from the Russian people than any other leader...ever. You'll have to read the whole book to find the grand total of this theft. It is staggering.

About the author

Bill Browder is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005. Since 2009, when his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was murdered in prison after uncovering a $230 million fraud committed by Russian government officials, Browder has been leading a campaign to expose Russia’s endemic corruption and human rights abuses. Before founding Hermitage, Browder was vice president at Salomon Brothers. He holds a BA in economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Stanford Business School.