Russians threaten to kidnap business man who exposed huge tax fraud?

Observer/Guardian:

The Russian government has hatched a sensational plot to kidnap a prominent British businessman and smuggle him out of the country, it has been claimed.

Newly lodged court documents, seen by the Observer, allege that Russian criminal syndicates working with the Kremlin planned to abduct London-based Bill Browder, who is mired in a wrangle with the Putin regime over the controversial death of a whistleblower.

Browder, chief executive of a British-based investment fund, Hermitage Capital Management, hired as his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who went on to expose a tax fraud worth £144m, the biggest in Russian history. After making accusations against interior ministry officials, Magnitsky was arrested. He died in police custody five years ago after being denied medical care. Instead of ordering a proper investigation into Magnitsky’s murder, the Kremlin allegedly covered it up.

Documents submitted to the US district court, southern district of New York, on Friday night have revealed details of the alleged rendition attempt for the first time. A witness statement by Browder, submitted in a legal case involving the whereabouts of money from the tax fraud, reads: “A representative of the US attorney’s office reached out to me and explained that the office had received confidential information that unknown persons were soliciting contributions to a fund intended to hire private investigators to find me and return me to Russia.

“By this point, I and multiple Hermitage personnel and lawyers had been either forcibly ejected or run out of Russia due to credible threats against us.
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The Russians have tried on several occasions to get Interpol to arrest Browder.   So far that organization has refused because they see this as a political dispute. It sounds like a plot run by an organized crime syndicate rather than a government, but Russia under putin seems to fit that mold.