Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

New Complaint Alleges Theft of $107 Million in Russia

Barron’s

Hermitage Capital filed a new criminal complaint, alleging Moscow tax officials helped steal $107 million through an earlier fraudulent tax-refund scheme in 2006.

Bill Browder, founder of the Russia-focused hedge fund Hermitage Capital, continues to seek justice from a seemingly corrupt system. “We hope to thoroughly embarrass the Russian government into action,” said Browder in a phone interview this morning.

On Friday, Hermitage Capital filed its latest criminal complaint with Russia’s State Investigative Committee, demanding that prosecutors investigate the second massive tax rebate fraud exposed by the late Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer working for Hermitage before his death in the custody of Russian cops he’d accused of corruption. Before his arrest, Magnitsky had helped Hermitage file a detailed criminal complaint in July of 2008 that provided evidence of a $230 million tax-refund scheme in 2007 (later described by Barron’s in “Crime and Punishment in Putin’s Russia,” April 16).