According to Global Financial Integrity, a non-profit based in Washington DC that researches illicit financial flows, every year around $1tn moves illegally out of developing and emerging economies as a result of crime, corruption and tax evasion – more than is received in direct foreign investment and foreign aid combined. The flow of money around the globe relies on weak governance, malleable financial organisations, underfunded law enforcement and, in many cases, anaemic regulation. “Every activist could only dream of having such consistent media attention on their campaign.” “As long as I stay in the centre of this whole storm, it only continues to bring heat and light to my issue,” he says. He was released after around an hour.Īs terrifying as the prospect of rendition might be, such incidents propel Browder – and his cause – into newsfeeds across the globe. The officers soon began to get a sense that Browder might not be the criminal mastermind they had anticipated on the basis of the warrant. Weeks later, sitting in the boardroom of his investment fund, Hermitage Capital Management, in London, he muses on the way that protests against his detention – from journalists, politicians (one name Browder saw flash on his caller ID was then foreign secretary Boris Johnson) and activists – gained such momentum on the internet. When Browder arrived at the police station, he was able to see his phone, which had been placed on a desk.

He still considered himself in jeopardy – while unlikely, there was a possibility that a Spanish court could hand him over to Russian authorities. “I wasn’t ready to go into this building and get injected with something and end up in Moscow 24 hours later,” he says.Īfter some back and forth, the officers relented and escorted him to the Centro police station. Going to the police station right now.”īrowder told them that there would be no medical examination. “Urgent: Just was arrested by Spanish police in Madrid on a Russian Interpol arrest warrant. He stepped back into his room and, rather than pick up his toothbrush, sent a tweet. The police were accompanied by the general manager of the hotel, who requested that Browder be allowed to pack. They asked Browder for ID before informing him that they had an Interpol warrant and that he was being placed under arrest. Browder intended to share evidence he had uncovered regarding €30m in criminal proceeds that had been used to buy luxury properties on the coast of Spain.Īt 09.40 the following morning, as he was leaving for an 11:00 meeting, Browder found two officers from the Spanish National Police waiting outside his hotel room. On May 29 2018, the financier-turned-campaigner Bill Browder made a trip to Madrid to meet José Grinda González, a special prosecutor at the Spanish attorney general’s office who has had significant success in dismantling Russian transnational crime syndicates.

Red alert bill browder