Not denying that Russia abuses Interpol, but I have doubts about this particular narrative that he was some kind of "government critic." From what I can find, he privatized a state corporation in the 90s for pennies (lots of very shady deals back then, usually facilitated by organized crime). From 2010-2020, I can find media reports about his legal problems with tax evasion. In 2021, there was a case where he threatened people with murder while holding a rifle. He was perfectly fine living in Putin's Russia until 2022, when he took 250 mln from the company's budget without consulting the board of directors and left Russia (and prosecutors also found that the privatization in the 90s was illegal). I suspect he's part of the 90s mafia who's now on the Interpol list, which makes his life abroad questionable, so now he has to spin the narrative that it's a political case.

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s_dev 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>Not denying that Russia abuses Interpol

The Bill Browder case was clear abuse. In case anyone is looking for a single precedent of this.

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braincat31415 an hour ago | parent [-]

That's what he says, but I very much doubt that. He was running an investment fund in Russia in the 90s. Back then such activity was impossible there without some connection to the organized crime, whether state-affiliated or otherwise. He likely lost the power struggle against other crooks and got Interpol used against him.

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alephnerd 38 minutes ago | parent [-]

By that logic Mark Carney (the PM of Canada) is a potential criminal as well because he did M&A and Sovereign Risk work for GS's Russian investments during Shock Therapy and the post-Apartheid government in ZA (most of whom ended up being associated with Zumagate) in the early-to-mid 1990s [0].

[0] - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/mark-carn...

	▲	braincat31415 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Alephnerd, I doubt Mark Carney was personally involved in anything shady, but it is entirely possible that GS operations in Russia proper were not entirely clean. I am not even implying that GS was aware of anything. What I am saying is not a long stretch by any means, just look up the 1mdb scandal. And Browder was right there in Moscow in the middle of it. Tell any Russian old enough to remember that Browder's operations in the 90s were in complete compliance with the law, they would laugh in your face.

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viktorcode 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And yet despite his alleged criminal activities Russian prosecutors have failed to present an evidence-backed case that would warrant the notice to Interpol. That is why it was cleared.

	▲	pjc50 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ah, this is an OJ Simpson: looks extremely guilty, but because the police are lazy and incompetent they frame him rather than building an actual case.

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jmkni 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

By he you mean Igor Pestrikov?

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lazide 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To be fair, regardless of the details, every case in Russia is a political case. It’s the way the judiciary works there.

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FpUser 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Cut the crap please. There is a huge difference between likes of say serial rapist and ones that are in prison because they voiced disagreement with the Russian government. Btw the West happily deporting Russians who are in opposition to regime and are chased by it..

	▲	benterix an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I would reframe that. Everything that Kremlin says may or may not be true, so one may as well ignore it. And they are very happy to use the judiciary system against their opponents as in this case the victim is not just the enemy of the Kremlin, it's the enemy of all citizens (or, to be more precise, the ones who trust the version of truth presented by their government).

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trhway 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The point here isn't whether this guy clean or not. The point is that you can't trust allegations made by Russia. Any allegations made by Russia are what is called "fruit of the poisoned tree".

And just for example, Navalny was put in prison for alleged and proven in a so called "Russian court of law" financial/commercial crimes.

>He was perfectly fine living in Putin's Russia until 2022

That suggests that Russia was for 20+ years fine with whatever financial crimes this guy had been committing as long as he played ball (and like many there continue to commit while staying loyal to the regime), and is really using these crimes to get him now for political motives. (and, yes, looking at current Russian opposition you can find a bunch of guys who is rich and most probably made their money in Russia not in completely legal way, and i honestly don't have respect for them, yet it is clear that the regime is going after them purely for their opposition)

>and prosecutors also found that the privatization in the 90s was illegal

there has been whole wave of such findings recently (and Supreme Court specifically removed statute of limitations here). As result the privatization is usually nullified, the property gets confiscated by the government, and later it ends up in the hands of Putin's friends, family, loyalists. It is a huge redistribution of assets under the guise of "Russian law"

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pydry 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, the UK has a habit of giving a new home to Russian oligarchs.

There are several in my area of London who live in opulent mansions (one looks very Trump-like) bought with soviet privatization wealth.

Some of their houses: https://www.mylondon.news/news/property/london-mansions-owne...

	▲	dvfjsdhgfv 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Gosh, this one in Witanhurst, Highgate is a real beast. He must have a ton of people just to maintain it.

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derelicta 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I suppose our own politicians are so corrupt they see nothing wrong with such behavior and automatically consider such case as abusive.