No wonder all the Russian trolls hate Pres. Obama and love Pres. Trump.
Just remember, Trump would run this country the same way as Putin if he could. It should be obvious he is trying. His $1.8 billion dollar slush fund is only the beginning.
Sergei Magnitsky exposed the largest tax fraud in Russian history.
Moscow. November 2008.
He named the police officers responsible. Five weeks later, the same officers had him arrested.
358 days in prison. No trial. No surgery for the pain in his stomach.
November 16, 2009. Eight guards beat him to death with rubber batons.
He was 37. He was a tax lawyer.
Here's how he got there.
Sergei was born in Ukraine in 1972. Moved to Moscow. Became one of the best tax advisors in Russia.
His main client was a hedge fund. Hermitage Capital. The biggest foreign investor in Russia. Run by an American-born British financier named Bill Browder.
For years, Browder had supported Vladimir Putin. Believed Putin was modernizing Russia. Believed his investments were safe.He was wrong. November 2005. Russia expelled him. Declared him a national security threat. Didn't explain why. Browder believed Putin's people wanted his companies.
He was right.
June 2007. Russian Interior Ministry officers raided Hermitage's Moscow offices. Took the incorporation documents for three Hermitage companies. Riland. Parfenion. Makhaon.
Two months later, those companies had new owners. Re-registered without Hermitage's knowledge.
Then fake lawsuits were filed against them. The same lawyers represented both sides. Courts ordered the companies to pay damages of nearly $1 billion.
The new owners applied for a tax refund. Claimed they'd overpaid Russian taxes by $230 million.
The Russian tax authority approved it in one day.
The money disappeared into shell accounts.
The largest tax fraud in Russian history.
Sergei figured it out.
October 2008. He testified to Russian authorities. Named the officials he believed had organized the theft. Two Interior Ministry officers in particular. Artem Kuznetsov. Pavel Karpov.
Five weeks later, Sergei was arrested.
The arresting officers reported to Kuznetsov and Karpov.
He was taken to Butyrka prison. Charged with the same fraud he had just reported.
Investigators came to him in his cell. Asked him to retract his testimony. Asked him to sign confessions against Browder. He refused.
He was moved to worse cells. Smaller. Colder. No toilet. Shared with violent prisoners.
He wrote 450 letters and formal complaints.
June 2009. He developed gallstones. Pancreatitis. A blocked gallbladder. Prison doctors ordered surgery.
The surgery never came. By November, he was vomiting every three hours. His stomach was swollen. He couldn't lie down.
November 16, 2009. He was transferred to Matrosskaya Tishina prison. It had a medical unit. He was supposed to be treated.
He was placed in an isolation cell.
Eight prison guards walked in.
They handcuffed him to a bed.
They beat him with rubber batons for over an hour.
Civilian medics had been called. They waited outside the cell. The guards wouldn't let them in.
By the time the medics got inside, Sergei had been dead for 15 minutes.
He had been in custody for 358 days.
He would have been legally released in eight days. Russian law sets a one-year limit on pre-trial detention.
The next morning, his mother went to Butyrka with his clothes. The guards told her he had been transferred. She went to Matrosskaya Tishina. They told her he had died the day before.
She wasn't allowed an independent autopsy.
When she saw his body, his hands were clenched into fists. There were bruises on his knuckles.
The first death certificate said "rupture of the abdominal membrane." The second said "heart failure." Traumatic brain injury was listed on the first version. Quietly removed from the second.
Eleven months later, Browder hired forensic experts. They concluded Sergei had been beaten to death.
The Kremlin's own Human Rights Council agreed.
Only two low-ranking prison doctors were ever charged. The charges against one were dropped on a technicality. The other was acquitted. The case was officially closed in March 2013.
Then it got worse.
December 2012. The United States Congress passed the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. Obama signed it. The law lets the U.S. government freeze the assets of foreign officials involved in human rights abuses or serious corruption.
Russia responded by banning American adoptions of Russian children.
Magnitsky laws have since passed in the United Kingdom. Canada. The European Union. Australia. Over a dozen countries. None in Russia.
July 2013. A Moscow court convicted Sergei Magnitsky of tax evasion. Posthumously.
The first posthumous trial in Russian history. Bill Browder was tried in the same case. In absentia. Also convicted. Sergei had been dead for nearly four years.
The Russian officials he named were never investigated.
Some were promoted. Some accumulated millions of dollars in real estate, cars, and offshore accounts on civil servant salaries.Hermitage identified 60 officials connected to the fraud and the cover-up. None of them faced Russian charges.
March 2017. The Magnitsky family's lawyer, Nikolai Gorokhov, fell from the 4th floor of his Moscow apartment building. Hours before he was due to give evidence in a related case. He survived.
August 2019. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible for Sergei's death.
Russia ignored the ruling.
Here's what makes this infuriating.
Sergei wasn't a dissident. Wasn't a journalist. Wasn't an opposition figure.
He was a tax lawyer.
He noticed a $230 million refund had been issued fraudulently. He told the authorities. He believed Russian law would handle it.
The authorities arrested him. Tortured him. Killed him.
Then convicted him of the very crime he had exposed.
The men who beat him kept their jobs. Some are still working.
In Russia, the case is closed.
Sergei Magnitsky is still convicted of tax evasion.
His mother is still alive. She still files complaints. The Russian government still ignores them.
His daughter has no father.
The men who killed him have pensions.
Just remember, Trump would run this country the same way as Putin if he could. It should be obvious he is trying. His $1.8 billion dollar slush fund is only the beginning.
Sergei Magnitsky exposed the largest tax fraud in Russian history.
Moscow. November 2008.
He named the police officers responsible. Five weeks later, the same officers had him arrested.
358 days in prison. No trial. No surgery for the pain in his stomach.
November 16, 2009. Eight guards beat him to death with rubber batons.
He was 37. He was a tax lawyer.
Here's how he got there.
Sergei was born in Ukraine in 1972. Moved to Moscow. Became one of the best tax advisors in Russia.
His main client was a hedge fund. Hermitage Capital. The biggest foreign investor in Russia. Run by an American-born British financier named Bill Browder.
For years, Browder had supported Vladimir Putin. Believed Putin was modernizing Russia. Believed his investments were safe.He was wrong. November 2005. Russia expelled him. Declared him a national security threat. Didn't explain why. Browder believed Putin's people wanted his companies.
He was right.
June 2007. Russian Interior Ministry officers raided Hermitage's Moscow offices. Took the incorporation documents for three Hermitage companies. Riland. Parfenion. Makhaon.
Two months later, those companies had new owners. Re-registered without Hermitage's knowledge.
Then fake lawsuits were filed against them. The same lawyers represented both sides. Courts ordered the companies to pay damages of nearly $1 billion.
The new owners applied for a tax refund. Claimed they'd overpaid Russian taxes by $230 million.
The Russian tax authority approved it in one day.
The money disappeared into shell accounts.
The largest tax fraud in Russian history.
Sergei figured it out.
October 2008. He testified to Russian authorities. Named the officials he believed had organized the theft. Two Interior Ministry officers in particular. Artem Kuznetsov. Pavel Karpov.
Five weeks later, Sergei was arrested.
The arresting officers reported to Kuznetsov and Karpov.
He was taken to Butyrka prison. Charged with the same fraud he had just reported.
Investigators came to him in his cell. Asked him to retract his testimony. Asked him to sign confessions against Browder. He refused.
He was moved to worse cells. Smaller. Colder. No toilet. Shared with violent prisoners.
He wrote 450 letters and formal complaints.
June 2009. He developed gallstones. Pancreatitis. A blocked gallbladder. Prison doctors ordered surgery.
The surgery never came. By November, he was vomiting every three hours. His stomach was swollen. He couldn't lie down.
November 16, 2009. He was transferred to Matrosskaya Tishina prison. It had a medical unit. He was supposed to be treated.
He was placed in an isolation cell.
Eight prison guards walked in.
They handcuffed him to a bed.
They beat him with rubber batons for over an hour.
Civilian medics had been called. They waited outside the cell. The guards wouldn't let them in.
By the time the medics got inside, Sergei had been dead for 15 minutes.
He had been in custody for 358 days.
He would have been legally released in eight days. Russian law sets a one-year limit on pre-trial detention.
The next morning, his mother went to Butyrka with his clothes. The guards told her he had been transferred. She went to Matrosskaya Tishina. They told her he had died the day before.
She wasn't allowed an independent autopsy.
When she saw his body, his hands were clenched into fists. There were bruises on his knuckles.
The first death certificate said "rupture of the abdominal membrane." The second said "heart failure." Traumatic brain injury was listed on the first version. Quietly removed from the second.
Eleven months later, Browder hired forensic experts. They concluded Sergei had been beaten to death.
The Kremlin's own Human Rights Council agreed.
Only two low-ranking prison doctors were ever charged. The charges against one were dropped on a technicality. The other was acquitted. The case was officially closed in March 2013.
Then it got worse.
December 2012. The United States Congress passed the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. Obama signed it. The law lets the U.S. government freeze the assets of foreign officials involved in human rights abuses or serious corruption.
Russia responded by banning American adoptions of Russian children.
Magnitsky laws have since passed in the United Kingdom. Canada. The European Union. Australia. Over a dozen countries. None in Russia.
July 2013. A Moscow court convicted Sergei Magnitsky of tax evasion. Posthumously.
The first posthumous trial in Russian history. Bill Browder was tried in the same case. In absentia. Also convicted. Sergei had been dead for nearly four years.
The Russian officials he named were never investigated.
Some were promoted. Some accumulated millions of dollars in real estate, cars, and offshore accounts on civil servant salaries.Hermitage identified 60 officials connected to the fraud and the cover-up. None of them faced Russian charges.
March 2017. The Magnitsky family's lawyer, Nikolai Gorokhov, fell from the 4th floor of his Moscow apartment building. Hours before he was due to give evidence in a related case. He survived.
August 2019. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible for Sergei's death.
Russia ignored the ruling.
Here's what makes this infuriating.
Sergei wasn't a dissident. Wasn't a journalist. Wasn't an opposition figure.
He was a tax lawyer.
He noticed a $230 million refund had been issued fraudulently. He told the authorities. He believed Russian law would handle it.
The authorities arrested him. Tortured him. Killed him.
Then convicted him of the very crime he had exposed.
The men who beat him kept their jobs. Some are still working.
In Russia, the case is closed.
Sergei Magnitsky is still convicted of tax evasion.
His mother is still alive. She still files complaints. The Russian government still ignores them.
His daughter has no father.
The men who killed him have pensions.
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