BILL BROWDER: I'm a guy who went to Russia
to run an investment fund.
I discovered corruption, I exposed it,
and I fell out with the regime.
LINETTE LOPEZ: So we have a lot to talk about.
Over the last few days, we've seen
some incredible, incredible news from Russia and the UK
all around the United States about violence
at the hands of Putin's regime, which you've experienced.
In the UK, a former Soviet spy and his daughter
were attacked using a nerve gas that we haven't
seen since World War II.
We have an ally of Boris [? Berezovsky ?]
mysteriously killed.
And we have-- now, we have sanctions, new sanctions
against the Russian government from the United States,
UK, France.
Give us your take on this.
What do we-- what should we expect to see,
and what does this mean that is going through Putin's head?
And what is happening in Russia right now?
BILL BROWDER: First of all, let's
put something in perspective.
So Russia has now captured-- is in the headlines of almost
every different issue.
This is a country with the economy
the size of New York state.
So this is not because they're an economic superpower
that they're doing all this kind of stuff.
This is because Vladimir Putin is effectively the biggest
criminal in the world.
He's a mafia boss, and he's going around doing mafia
techniques in international relations,
and he's gotten everybody's attention.
And part of the reason that he's doing this
is that he needs to distract everybody in Russia
from the problems that are going on in Russia.
And so he's just poking at every different thing,
and creating all this crisis and controversy.
LINETTE LOPEZ: You spearheaded the Magnitsky Act, which
some Russians, I think, blame for part
of their economic situation.
Can you explain what you've done, how you did it, and why?
BILL BROWDER: So first of all, so who am I?
I'm a guy who went to Russia to run an investment fund.
I discovered corruption, I exposed it,
and I fell out with the regime.
And in retaliation, they kicked me out of the country.
They raided my offices.
They seized my investment holding companies,
and used them to steal $230 million in taxes
that I paid to the Russian government.
A young lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky discovered the crime,
exposed it, and he was subsequently arrested, tortured
for 358 days, and killed at the age of 37
on November 16th, 2009.
Since then, I've been on a mission
to get justice for Sergei.
And that's led to a piece of legislation
here in the United States called the Magnitsky Act, which
freezes the assets and bans the visas
of people who killed Sergei and people
who do similar types of things.
The Magnitsky Act is now in seven
countries around the world, and Putin
hates it with all of his heart.
Why does he hate it?
Because Putin has stolen an enormous amount of money,
and he's killed a lot of people in the process.
And he understands, rightfully so,
that the money that he's stolen, which
he keeps in Western banks, could be
seized under the Magnitsky Act.
And so as a result, he's made it his single largest foreign
policy priority to repeal the Magnitsky Act.
He's stated that publicly.
LINETTE LOPEZ: So why do Putin's cronies hate Magnitsky so much?
BILL BROWDER: So normally, when you go into government
in a regular country, you go in to serve the country
and serve the people of the country.
In Russia, people go into government to effectively
become [INAUDIBLE] or mafia bosses of different areas
of the economy.
And they steal an enormous amount of money,
and every different government official is spectacularly rich.
But as much as they steal that money in Russia,
they don't feel comfortable keeping it in Russia.
They want to keep it in the West.
And because they keep it in the West,
all that money is exposed.
And then the whole purpose of going into government, where
they've spent all this time and energy
stealing money and terrorizing people is all for naught.
All that hard work is for naught if that money gets frozen.
And so for them, it's-- and I should
point out that these people value money over human life.
And therefore, it's so crucial to them
that their money is safe.
And if their money is not safe, then they feel very angry.
And they're particularly angry at the guy who
created the Magnitsky Act to make their money
not safe, which is me.