J'Accuse News - The Magnitsky Myth & Other Keys to the Geopolitical Hoax of the Century

“History is a set of lies agreed upon” – Napoleon Bonaparte’s observation, in one wording or another, is well-demonstrated today.

State-serving propaganda is abundant and obvious in our modern times of mass media. Via such cons as the "Gulf of Tonkin incident" and the "Iraq WMDs" lies we've witnessed what is delivered by these messengers.

Which, in this era of sanctions as weapons of control and war, brings us to a current geopolitical propaganda campaign under a banner of the "Magnitsky myth". It's a con so transparently fraudulent, so shabbily fabricated of lies and misrepresentations that it'd embarrass the more self-respecting of old-time stock-promoters whom I busted for decades last century.*

And, in my busman’s holiday efforts to highlight aspects of the patently, absurdly, dishonest recasting of career conman William F. Browder as an anti-corruption crusader, we see numerous elements of how and why naked lies are dressed up by our press & politicians et al.

Recently I’ve written to the CFA Society Toronto. (Such materials being self-explanatory – and reproducible multiple times over with different, equally damning, evidence.) In the time since my CFA letters have been published I’ve heard from former colleagues in journalism, finance and other professions in response.

Such parties, highly-recognized and respected in their fields, cannot and do not dispute the facts presented. Nor can or do they refute the conclusions which arise therefrom naturally. The Magnitsky myth is a global geopolitical propaganda campaign. It is a hoax. One that's a key to fraudulent "narratives" that stoke tensions and which lead to grave harms, destruction and death.

Instead, what I am hearing in response to concerns raised is that it is aok to not tell the public the truth. To hell with the facts say today's leading journalists in the main. We are on a team and must hold to the party-line. We should not have qualms that lies being platformed and amplified in today's "legacy" media are the product of corrupt merchants. It's aok to engage in sleazy informational warfare that harms innocent people all over our world.

All that matters, my former professional colleagues signal, is that we stop “Putin and his kleptocracy."

I believe the role of the press, of journalism, is to serve the people, and its duty is to serve the truth.

Download what’s recently communicated to the Chartered Financial Analysts here by clicking on the document thumbnails –

The Magnitsky campaign of geopolitical propaganda promulgated via Five Eyes+ nations, is, simply, a transparent hoax. It’s an initiative of networks of criminal + state actors fronted by a career conman. It’d fool next-to-no-one were it not for the abject failure of our legacy media.

Bill Browder's an "anti-corruption crusader" in the way that Bill Cosby's "America's Dad" and Harvey Weinstein's "God". (And for more Canuck-centric audiences – Jian Ghomeshi's a "feminist".) It's a false construct. An illusion. A myth.

In the 1990s, along with the arrival of legitimate operators, predatory capitalists invaded the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR 1922 - 1991) on missions pecuniary, political, and/or a mixture of both – “carpet-baggers from the West” in the words of David Cornwell (best known as novelist John le Carré).

Among the avaricious and unscrupulous in the "plague of locusts" that descended on Russia is one William Felix Browder, New Jersey, USA-born (23.04.1964) – a con-man who’d worked for the crooked

UK+

‘press baron’ Robert Maxwell until the 1991 death of the “Bouncing Czech” off his super-yacht, Lady Ghislaine.

(Maxwell purchased the Lady Ghislaine from the Emad Khashoggi family. Emad’s uncle, Saudi arms-dealer Adnan Khashoggi, earned notoriety globally via his association with BCCI – the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International known colloquially as the “Bank of Crooks and Criminals Intl.” Adnan made news in

Canada

in the 1980s when he endeavoured to cheat creditors by moving assets through Vancouver Stock Exchange-listed+ shell companies.)

Following the November 1991 death of his employer, Robert Maxwell, and before he's protege to another such figure in the murky waters of global finance, conman Bill Browder's engaged in stock plays for Salomon Brothers including that of Petersburg Long Distance Inc. / PLD Telekom Inc. The PLD saga, to be told someday, involves a Canadian shell company, Ventech Healthcare Corp. Inc. which transformed itself into NWE Capital Corp. before yet another metamorphosis – into a Russian telecom operation. Shareholders of the shell included (Lord) Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, and amongst the cast of characters bridging these various promotions was corporate "master of disaster" Rupert Galliers-Pratt.

Further in the wake of Maxwell's curious death-at-sea and its ripples, ex-Maxwell Communications Corp. employee Bill Browder came under the “like gold” wings of a dubious mentor, the Lebanese-Brazilian banker Edmond J. Safra (mis-spelled as Edmund Saffra in the "black book" of convicted, notorious, sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein). Safra’s Republic National Bank of New York‘s associated with a number of dodgy Canadian stock deals of the 1980s and ’90s – among them: the fraudulent crustacean-trap-to-cellular-privacy share promotion, Cycomm International Inc. (chronicled on the next pages here); and a mid-‘90s mining stock play of Albert Applegath, (the huckster behind New Cinch Uranium Ltd. – Canada’s most notorious “salting” or false assaying scandal until gold-fraud Bre-X came along) – more on that deal should time allow. And, not to be left out, Safra’s RNBoNY served as Corporate Advisor to Bre-X Minerals Ltd. – the greatest fake-assay swindle in stock market history (cratering in 1997).

As detailed in subsequent pages on "J'Accuse News" site, for Browder's it's "like winning the lottery" when Edmond Safra (who died, under bizarre circumstances, from smoke-asphyxiation) and French-Israeli “diamond tycoon” Beny Steinmetz, (mired more recently in a massive bribery and money-laundering controversy in Guinea), bank-rolled an operation in Moscow, Hermitage Capital, with him up-front as CEO. Hermitage launched in 1996. (Following Safra’s mysterious 1999 demise RNBoNY’s sale to HSBC was completed – partnering the latter with Browder’s Hermitage team in Russia and offshore, incl. domestic "offshore", locations.)

Encamped in Moscow, in a particularly callous, as well as lucrative scheme, Hermitage group companies for which Bill Browder served as General Director, and Sergei Magnitsky (alt. spellings Sergey, Magnitskiy) acted as Chief Accountant, for years 'employed' disabled people – eg. a victim of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster cleanup, an Afghan war veteran, and one challenged with a genetic disease and mental retardation – claiming them to be expert financial analysts ie. essentially props in a multi-million-dollar tax-fraud. Court found that Browder, Magnitsky and team were "wittingly aware that no work will be performed by the disabled people" and carried out their scheme "without creating jobsites for them". Browder was responsible for filing these sham companies' tax returns – which he duly signed.

After scamming economically-distressed, Kalmykia, (a pastoral Republic situated in the southwest corner of the Russian Federation), by promising-and-not-delivering on a business centre and by falsifying employment records/status etc., and ripping off Russia’s federal government for tax revenues, domestic “offshore” companies structured by accountant Sergei Magnitsky for General Director Bill Browder and co. wound up bankrupt, transferred for liquidation to Jakir Daniel Sha'ashoua (numerous spelling variants incl. Yakir, Shashoua, Shashua – and in the fictional book, “Red Notice”, published under Browder’s name, he’s called Ariel Bouzada).

Sha'ashoua, "an Israeli ex-Mossad agent", (according to Browder's ghostwriter), provided "security" services to Edmond Safra's Republic National Bank of New York. Sha’ashoua’s Visao Risk Management Group (VRMG) opened shop in Moscow in 1995 – the prior year to Hermitage’s launch.

With millions of dollars in taxes still unpaid by these entities, Bill Browder's questioned in the US Southern District of New York's Prevezon case by lawyer Mark Cymrot – click on the above thumbnails to see each page of SDNY court transcript. (For more damning testimony from this examination day, April 15, 2015, click here for the full transcript.) In convicting Bill Browder of large-scale tax-evasion, Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court made a concise assessment that well describes his game: "The court rejected the arguments of Browder's innocence because they are contradicted by the evidence, the court recognized valid and laid the basis for the verdict."

The first, (which is followed by a second), of Hermitage's various illegal schemes for which Bill Browder’s criminally-convicted reveals – via corporate, police and court+ records filed in the USA (incl. Prevezon case) and Russia+ (incl. Dalnaya Step, Saturn Investments case) – the well-documented m.o. and history that is concealed by those anxious to perpetuate the Magnitsky myth. It's most-plainly known as Criminal Case Number 153123.

Born (08.04.72) in Odessa, Ukrainian SSR, Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky graduated in 1993 from the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics "specializing in finance and credit". He went to work in Moscow at Firestone Duncan, a firm offering tax accounting and legal services operated by American Jamison "Jamie" Reid Firestone and others (see info on earlier pages of "J'Accuse News" as to FD's ownership, history etc.).

At Firestone Duncan the young tax accountant Magnitsky's put to work on Hermitage files. Commencing in the 1990s, for years Magnitsky followed instructions and/or requests of Bill Browder and team. Employment and court records document that Magnitsky was employed from 1995 as an accountant and certified as a qualified auditor (in 1998) – up until his 2008 arrest in connection with Hermitage-related tax evasion schemes. Manager of FD's Audit & Tax Dept. (from December 1995 - Dec. 2000) was Artem Uskov (today a London, UK-based "wealth manager").

In 1998, Hermitage players incorporated and registered in the city of Elista, in the autonomous Republic of Kalmykia,

Russian Federation

a pair of limited liability corporations – LLC Dalnaya Step (alt. spellings incl. Dalniaya Steppe + Dalnyaya Step/pe) and LLC Saturn Investments. As of June 9, 1998 Bill Browder was appointed General Director of, both, Saturn and Dalnaya (in English - Distant Step or Steppe). On August 17, 1999 Dalnaya and Saturn filed paperwork to register as companies that invest in Kalmykia including a promise to develop the "Kalmytskiy Business-Center" "within the administrative territorial unit with special status 'City Chess'." (City Chess, aka Chess City, located to the east of Elista, is a complex devoted to the game of chess. It's the controversial pet project of Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov, Head of the Republic from 1993 - 2010.)

The "staff of each company consisted of the Director General Browder and disabled employees of the analytical department". Sergei Magnitsky acted as Chief Accountant of Dalnaya and Saturn working from offices of Firestone Duncan. Magnitsky visited Elista in-person on a number of occasions and, witnesses testified, he advised Kalmykians what to tell the authorities should questions be raised about their fictitious employment arrangements. (By 2003/4 authorities uncovered the fraudulent scheme of Browder, Magnitsky et al and the Hermitage team was in the process of trying to cover its tracks.)

“Offshore People”. Stark. Poetic. The 2010 documentary introduces us to those forgotten, ignored, and concealed people – the exploited victims of Hermitage fraud in Kalmykia for which Bill Browder, American-turned-British agent of deception, is criminally-convicted.

Meet the expert “financial analysts” – according to false documents filed by Browder+ entities for multi-million-dollar tax-benefits. Along with Viktor Byatkiev, suffering with third group disability, registered by Saturn Investments as expert analyst, meet: disabled brothers, Alexey and Odn Erencenovich Bukayev (claimed as financial analysts by Dalnaya Step and Saturn, respectively); Erni Badykov, former tractor operator, a casualty of Chernobyl nuclear plant cleanup, also falsely represented in Saturn’s “Expert Analysts Division”. Afghan war veteran Volodya Tsydeev was used to recruit for the scheme which turned out to be a giant fraud.

Meet these Kalmyks+ and you’ll know why Bill Browder runs from justice in this case. Those left behind by the career conman are “Offshore People”. In a land whose people have endured extreme hardship and repression – carpet-baggers from the West stealing much needed tax+ revenues from the Republic of Kalmykia is additionally callous. This documentary, filmed on location in Kalmykia+, is written & directed by investigative journalist / auteur Vadim Rechkalov (24.04.1964 – 08.01.2017).

In a pattern familiar to those of us who study such scams here in the West, the corporate facades of Browder and Magnitsky+ received generous tax concessions for promising to help build the economy of an impoverished region. But they never delivered the promised contribution to Kalmykia's needy economy. There was no physical operation employing a raft of expert financial analysts+ as claimed in tax and other government filings. Instead, the great tax benefits obtained illegally through Saturn and Dalnaya charades were applied against monies/profits, channelled through the Kalmykian-registered entities from other financial schemes such as share-trading of Hermitage and its trustee HSBC (Guernsey) via holding co.s in "offshore" Cyprus.

Corporate, financial and other records filed in court+ show that, during the material period while the Kalmykian shells were under the control of Bill Browder/Hermitage – and before they're unplugged and transferred to "fixer" Jakir Daniel Sha'ashoua for liquidaton – from August 18, 1999 through to March 29, 2002 Browder, Magnitsky and co. "did not make any investments in the construction and development of the business center" (and no further agreements were entered into as was required vis-a-vis "Kalmytskiy Business-Center").

As well, during this material period, Dalnaya and Saturn filed false information, staff lists etc. about their employment of disabled people.to further, illegally, gain tremendous federal tax-breaks. (Generous incentives were offered to businesses to maintain a minimum 50% of their staffing through legitimate employment of handicapped persons.) Interviews with those claimed as such workers by the Hermitage entities, and other witnesses, along with documentary records show that these were 'employees' in name only. They did not – in fact, could not – perform the work underlying the filings of Browder and Magnitsky+. Instead, the Kalmykians received nominal sums – "enough to buy bread" as one "expert analyst": put it – to be workers only on paper. (The amount's generally in the range of US $15 - $30 per month – a small fraction of the pay unskilled laborers would receive at the time. Actual financial analysts would, naturally, be paid, exponentially, still more.) Their disability records and employment books and related docs were used as props in the multi-million dollar tax fraud executed by Magnitsky, Browder and accomplices+.

Testifying under oath, Vladimir Nikolaevich Tsedeev (appears also in English translations as: Volodya Tsedieyev, Tsydeev, and Cedeev), Chairman of "Union of Afghan Veterans of the Republic of Kalmykia", explained how this harmful tax-scam unfolded. In 1998/99, Tsedeev testified, initially Firestone Duncan's Uskov contacted him asking him to find disabled people in Republic of Kalmykia for fictitious work ie. they would not do any actual work, and would be paid for use of their names and paperwork. (In fact, a number of disabled Kalmykians used in the Hermitage scheme held real jobs at other locations and such duties they continued performing during the period Browder and Magnitsky's paperwork falsely claimed they're employed by Saturn and Dalnaya. Other handicapped individuals used in the tax-fraud were simply unemployed by any honest definition throughout the material period.)

Tsedeev next spoke with Sergei Magnitsky about the scheme by phone. Following this, Magnitsky made several visits to Elista (sometimes "there was also Victor that came with him" from Moscow, witnesses testified). Magnitsky met in-person with Tsedeev and Viktor Byatkiev, (a former classmate of Tsedeev's on disability pension - a machine/mechanical engineer by trade who'd be falsely claimed by Saturn Investments as an employee of its "Expert Analysts Division").

Tsedeev told the court, in testimony corroborated by Byatkiev, Magnitsky was not interested in educational or other such employment qualifications. Nor did Magnitsky care about the specialty, skills etc. of any employees for the Hermitage co.'s Dalnaya Step and Saturn – just that they had the disability documents and the requisite working group of disability categorization to enable claims for tax concessions to be submitted. In 2003/4, Tsedeev says, when matters were pursued, (in Arbitration Court and by the tax authorities of Kalmykia), Magnitsky personally called Tsedeev and Byatkiev making clear to them the need to maintain the fiction.

The companies, prior to bankruptcy and liquidation, failed to invest in the economy as promised and they lied about their employment of disabled people as expert financial analysts. This multifold tax-scam deprived the people of the Republic of Kalmykia and the Russian Federation of much-needed capital and tax revenues. Hermitage companies Dalnaya Step and Saturn Investments wound up bankrupt, transferred to Jakir Daniel Sha'ashou's VRMG for liquidation. The carpet-baggers rolled up their tent and stole out of Elista and Chess City with a fortune in un-earned, illegal, tax benefits. On May 5, 2003 the Arbitration Court of Kalmykia found Saturn owed taxes in arrears of 4.6 million rubles and penalty interest of 487,000 rubles. On December 9, 2005 the Arbitration Court determined Dalnaya Step itself owed 551 million rubles in unpaid taxes. In aggregrate, these Hermitage sham operations defrauded the public / government of some US $19.2 million (based on currency exchange rates at the time).

And for the human cost, there's much to learn from the experiences recounted by people used as pawns in the dishonest financial games of Bill Browder, Sergei Magnitsky and co. in Kalmykia.

Meet those exploited by the criminal scheme of Bill Browder, Sergei Magnitsky and others in spheres of Hermitage Capital and Firestone Duncan. These video-taped testimonies have been available to all online in the West since 2009. That's a decade of silence from our 'legacy' media.

Erni Badykov's of value to the Hermitage schemers because he's a "disabled person of group III resulting from an illness contracted during post-accident clean-up on service at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station". (The Chernobyl nuclear disaster, erupting from an accident at the No. 4 reactor, occurred April 26, 1986 near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR.)

A general laborer, worker, Erni had been unemployed since March 25, 1996 and struggling to survive on disability pension when his friend/relation Viktor Byatkiev told him of his employment as a "guard" at Saturn in Moscow. (Saturn, as noted earlier, would list Byatkiev as an analyst.) No actual work duties were performed, but official paperwork was needed, it was explained to Badykov who provided Byatkiev with his disablement certificate, passport and other documentation that was sought by Hermitage operators in Moscow.

In his video-taped interview with police, Erni Badykov explains that, in the beginning, he didn't even know he was employed by Saturn. He did no actual work for the company – and did not know his job title. The filings made by Saturn Investments list him as an employee of the "Expert Analysts Division". In 2003 - 2004, Badykov's testified, Viktor Byatkiev informed him that Saturn was "restructuring" and returned to him his employment book etc. which included notice of termination of his employment.

When news of Browder, Magnitsky et al's scam became public in Russia, Erni Badykov was interviewed by the press. Of Saturn Investments' operation he says: “I don’t even know what actually they were doing there. They just had some schemes with money. I don’t know shit. What kind of production or a firm.” The reporter asked: “So you are not a financial analyst at all?” Considering how he's billed in the company's official filings, Badykov good-naturedly scoffed: “Of couse not. I don’t remember anything I learned in school. And after school… I had nothing to do with math.”

Born in 1980, Alexey's the younger of two Bukayev brothers enlisted upon the request of Sergei Magnitsky for more disabled people. (His recruiter Victor Byatkiev, the machine engineer falsely claimed by Saturn as a financial analyst in its employ, is friends with the Bukayev boys' parents.) His value to the Hermitage group's scheme – Alexey Bukayev's disabled since childhood, suffering from infantile cerebral palsy (a permanent movement+ disorder). Previously categorized as a disabled person of group II, since 2001 Alexey's of group III status.

Alexey's paperwork was sent to the accountant Magnitsky in Moscow and he's falsely claimed as working for Dalnaya Step (and older brother, Odn, was put on the fictional staff-list of Saturn Investments). In convicting Saturn & Dalnaya General Director Bill Browder for this tax-evasion scheme, years later, the court found the Bukayevs "were doing nothing within these companies, they continued working for their primary employers".

Dalnaya Step's employment record book shows Alexey Bukayev's employed as an "Analytical department expert" from March 1, 1999 to December 31, 2003. Not only was there no such actual work performed - the dates, too, are fabricated. (Evidence at trial showed "the employment record book was made 'post factum' as the offer to become an employee of this company in name only, had been made well after the date".)

Alexey testified he and his brother received, from time-to-time, nominal payments over about one-and-a-half years before Byatkiev brought the pair letters of resignation to sign and told them they'd no longer receive any monies. Just as Sergei Magnitsky had instructed, Victor Byatkiev warned the Bukayev brothers they should say they'd done actual work for Dalnaya and Saturn if asked by the authorities+.

In reality, during the material period, Alexey Bukayev worked a number of jobs – including: as a sales clerk in a bread production plant; as an unskilled laborer in construction company KMK; as an unskilled laborer in private construction; and planting greenery for a municipal enterprise in Elista. Alexey testified he "never made any kind of work" for Dalnaya Step.

Odn Bukayev, (born 12.09.1975), a fictitious employee of Saturn Investments, is older brother to Alexey (a fictitious employee of Dalnaya Step as detailed above). What makes Odn valuable for the scheme of Browder, Magnitsky and co. is his diagnosis: "oligophrenia in the degree of debility". Oligophrenia, aka the Sjogren-Larsson Syndrome, is characterized by three clinical findings: ichtyosis (thickened, scaly, skin); spastic paraplegia (leg spasticity); and mental retardation. Since 2001 Odn's "a disabled person of group III (and post-2005 he's categorized as disabled person of group II).

Despite such considerable challenges – from October 27, 1999 through to 2005, legitimate employment records show, Odn Bukayev worked numerous jobs, as: sauna-worker, house-painter, pargeter (a plasterer), mason, keeper and unskilled laborer for different companies.

Just as did his brother, Alexey, and other Kalmykians, Odn provided his disablement certificate, passport and other documents for forwarding to Firestone Duncan's Sergei Magnitsky working for Browder's Hermitage team. Saturn Investments employment records submitted to tax authorities listed him as being hired February 1, 1999 as "analytical department expert" and dismissed December 31, 2003 by this Browder group entity in Kalmykia. (As with his brother's company employment record – for Dalnaya – these are proven to be artificial 'post factum' dates created for admittedly fictitious work. And, just like his brother was told, the instruction acountant/auditor Sergei Magnitsky gave recruiter, and phantom Saturn staffer, Viktor Byatkiev was passed along – Odn was informed he should say he's a real employee of Saturn if asked.)

Sister-in-law of Odn and Alexey Bukayev, D.B. Balzhynimaeva, testified re the brothers: "Both of them are able to perform works concerning physical activities (ie. physical labor)". Along with her in-laws' own testimony, and the documentary evidence, she confirmed that the brothers had never worked for Saturn and Dalnaya and, especially, not in the position of experts in financial analysis.

V.A. Byatkiev = Viktor Angrikovich Byatkiev (alt. Victor Bitkiev, Byatkiyeva)

Viktor Byatkiev's individual value to Hermitage is his classification as third group (III) of disability (pension from diseases). In 1999/2000 he's invited by classmate Vladimir Tsedeev to become a "nominal employee" of Saturn Investments. Tsedeev informed Byatkiev "that actually working in this organization is not required".

Over time, testifies Viktor, FD's Sergei Magnitsky called him to say he'd arrived in Elista. The pair met in a local restaurant and Magnitsky asked Byatkiev to find more people with disabilities for the same 'employment' opportunities – warning that if law enforcement or regulatory agencies made contact the disabled should say they were, in fact, actually working for "Dalnaya Step" and "Saturn". On behalf of Magnitsky, Byatkiev found relatives and (children of) friends to enlist: the Bukayev brothers Alexey & Odn; Erni Badykov; and I.S. Mikulyaeva.

(NB The pattern evidenced by those represented here in video-taped interviews repeats with other falsified/phantom ‘employees’ of the Hermitage co.s in Kalmykia. eg. I.S. Mikulyaeva's claimed in filings by the Hermitage/Firestone Duncan team to be an employee of Dalnaya Step and a disabled person of group III. Witnesses, however, testified, and Mikulyaeva's official work record shows, she worked only at the Amur Sanan National Library, Republic of Kalmykia, from 30.05.1973 until her death, from illness, on 09.07.2002.)

Byaktiev gathered the documents requested and sent them to accountant Sergei Magnitsky who, by this time had returned to Moscow from Kalmykia. Magnitsky visited twice more to Elista, contacting Byatkiev on those occasions as the Arbitration Court of the Republic of Kalmykia was probing matters. Finally, the court's told, Magnitsky again phoned Byatkiev – this time requesting letters of resignation of the disabled Kalmykians. Viktor Byatkiev obliged Magnitsky once more – sending the accountant these statements in the mail.

Interviewed in 2010's frank and moving documentary “Offshore People”, (coming soon in English translation), Viktor provides insight into the struggle for survival by the handicapped+ in Kalmykia, facing such limited employment, rocketing costs of medicine and other hardships. The film's narrator summarizes: “Victor Bitkiev by profession is a mechanical engineer. But who needs such an engineer with third group (type of incapacity / handicap)? Government exploited him and threw him out. Browder picked up Victor. And exploited him again.”

The government offers tax incentives to stimulate the economy, and aid the people, of a region in need. But, then, characters such as dishonest corporate exec Bill Browder and facilitating accountant Sergei Magnitsky get wind of things, and they corrupt the original intent. They cheat the people they’re pretending to help out of any benefits to come from millions of dollars in tax revenues (and that’s before considering any schemes orchestrated via share-trading etc. of Hermitage and trustee HSBC through Cyprus shells and other vehicles.)

Instead of putting money into the economy of hard-pressed Kalmykia, instead of aiding impoverished people with physical disabilities, injured by war, radiation or disease and facing tough challenges, to find gainful employment and purpose – Criminal Case Number 153123 shows us how they exploited these poor people. They used them as props in a criminal scheme and then discarded them when the scam had outlived its financial+ use to Hermitage. Browder and co. ripped off the Republic of Kalmykia and the community of Elista for a fortune in much-needed revenues.

Today, we in the West are asked to forget the Hermitage carpet-baggers' history, to ignore the facts, and, instead, to pretend a self-serving, calculated, fraud such as Bill Browder is on a campaign because he opposes corruption and positively cares about global human rights. C’est ridicule!

Dalnaya Step LLC also featured in subsequent criminal convictions of Hermitage's Bill Browder and Ivan Cherkasov. As well as exploiting disabled people in the group's Kalmykia scam, it's revealed during bankruptcy and liquidation proceedings that Dalnaya had been a conduit for 37.5 million illegally-purchased shares in Gazprom. Prior to placing Dalnaya into bankruptcy many millions were drained offshore by Hermitage and the fund's manager, HSBC Guernsey. (Some additional movements are discussed further down this page.)

Prior to its demise orchestrated by Hermitage players, Browder and Cherkasov Dalnaya roles were replaced on paper by nominees Elena Vasilyevna Filipchenkova and Yakir Daniel Sha'ashoua (aka Yakov Danilov Shosha aka Ariel Bouzada in Browder's ghost-written fictional "autobiography").

Under-oath, in US SDNY court on April 15, 2015 career conman Bill Browder testified that in liquidating offshore shell entities in the Hermitage/HSBC Kalmykia/Cyprus+ scheme, he employed services of Jakir Daniel Sha’ashoua (var. spellings). Sha’ashoua, who previously worked for Edmond Safra (Republic National Bank of New York), and in Moscow served Hermitage via Visao Risk Management Group (VRMG) since 1996, employed nominees in these manoeuvres – as seen in the above-noted example of Dalnaya Step (Dalnyaya Steppe etc.) – Elena Filipchenkova, then Managing Director of VRMG.

Filed in the US Southern District of New York (SDNY) court – English-language translation of Judgment of Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court against Bill Browder in connection with the Saturn + Dalnaya Step criminal scheme illuminated, above, on this web-page. NB Sergei Magnitsky, mythologized since his tragic death in prison (16.11.2009), though found guilty of illegal acts was not convicted. On July 11, 2013, Browder's convicted of large-scale tax evasion ("to the tune of 522 million rubles"). He's sentenced him to nine years in jail and barred from doing business in the Russian Federation for two years. – click on the image above to view/download the full document

There is more than enough independent information – corporate, court, police+ records, employee interviews etc. – accessible on the public record for anyone that chooses to know the truth of the “Magnitsky” campaign to do so. The reality is career con-man Bill Browder is currently aboard a front vehicle for mis-and-disinformation of the sort that stokes global tensions and wars, cold and hot, employing a type of deceptive script and actions witnessed from the Gulf of Tonkin to today's muddied waters.

Key to understanding this illusory narrative is the exploding-cigar of a case (Prevezon) rolled by convicted tax-evader Bill Browder’s Hermitage+ team and lit by Preet Bharara, then US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) – this video excerpt comes from an examination on April 15, 2015. For the full court docket, (which you can read for free), click HERE.

In a recent newspaper column renowned Danish journalist and editor+ Flemming Rose examines in detail some core, false, claims made by such propagators of the myth as Browder, his connected supporters Jonathan Winer (USA), Irwin Cotler (Canada) and others.

"In his own words, Sergey Magnitsky was neither Bill Browder’s lawyer nor a whistleblower. It is in his witness statements." Rose concludes: "I salute the fight against human rights abuses and personally was active in this fight in the former Soviet Union. But I fear that, by relying on untruths, Browder’s campaign could undermine this fight rather than support it."

Fittingly, in

Denmark

, the land which gave the world Hans Christian Andersen, author of "The Emperor's New Clothes", the Browder/Magnitsky con is unraveling and the naked truth is revealed:

+ Due diligence by journalists Jette Aagaard & Kristoffer Brahm and colleagues brings us a series of news articles published in “Finans”:

It can be observed that the Magnitsky hoax has benefited over the years through some boiler-plate methodology. Where would the scam be without those three Bs: bribery, bullying and bullshit?

British QC, John Beggs, pointed out during the 2017 Alexander Perepilichnyy inquest that Browder's metier is "rule of media" rather than "rule of law". And, it's evident, the press has the courage and integrity to expose the lies of Browder and co. that game is another loser for the career conman and team.

Pressenævnet, the Danish Press Council, following typical bullying complaints lodged by Bill Browder, ruled in December 2019 that content of a series of articles published in that nation’s Finans newspaper was entirely factual and balanced in revealing Browder as a conman and Magnitsky-related claims as lies. Click on the cover pages above to read the complete Pressenævnet ruling.

This year, in 2020, “Troldmanden”, the Danish best-seller by investigative authors Birgitte Dyrekilde & Lars Abild, exposing Browder’s scam in greater detail, will be published in English-language edition. The book's 2019 release in its original language, Danish, has opened up the discussion, highlighting the role of the establishment press in propagating and perpetuating this harmful hoax through a failure to conduct due diligence eg. "Flocking mentality and hand in money laundering should encourage journalistic self-examination":

Ten years ago, tax expert Sergei Magnitsky died in Russian custody. His boss, former billionaire investor and former Putin supporter Bill Browder, describes the case as a perfidious political murder plot ever since - and has obtained US sanctions against Russian officials. Magnitsky even became the name of a law that punishes human rights violations. But is the story true that Browder describes? Editor Benjamin Bidder and researcher Anika Zeller evaluated countless files over months and have doubts about Browder's representation. Bidder met Magnitsky's Moscow lawyer in 2009, and "even then, Browder's account was only partially consistent with the facts," he says. The story works "only clearly, as long as one disregards all details".

Click on the text-link above, or the image below, to go to Der Spiegel homesite of this feature, "Story Without a Hero", by Benjamin Bidder w. Dokumentarin Anika Zeller.

Conman Browder complained to the German Press Commission about Der Spiegel's November 22, 2019 feature (pictured above) exposing aspects of the Magnitsky fraud. Der Spiegel's responded in the way courageous mainstream journals with which I worked in the 1980s and '90s did – by publishing more facts and evidence further debunking this geopolitical hoax. Click the link below for this newest article in original German language text (13.12.2019):

And Der Spiegel's reportage is proved to be solid journalism. After reviewing the matter – on January 22, 2020 Deutscher Presserat, (Germany's press body), rejected the complaint of theMagnitsky hoaxers as did the board's Danish counterparts reject a complaint from Hermitage scammers the prior year (as noted earlier on this page).

It appears our once-trusted outlets in "Five Eyes" territory – The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, BBC, The Guardian, CBC, The Globe & Mail, The Australian et al – will not tell the truth about the Magnitsky hoax, but the Danes and Germans are showing they still practice real journalism.

For Bill Browder and the networks of criminal and state actors who've sold us a pack of lies and misrepresentations for a decade, it's game over as things continue on this path.

For the full transcript of Bill Browder's examination under-oath (15.04.2015) which debunks the myths – click on the thumbnail image below:

*During the 1980s and ’90s I investigated white collar / organized crime. Joining forensic accountants, lawyers, police, journalists, victims – we did our best to track, expose and stop predation, pollution and other destructive acts. Reportage of those cases resides in archives of: Canada Stockwatch, The Vancouver Sun, The Globe and Mail, The Financial Post, Equity, Macleans, BC Business, The Financial Times of Canada, CBC fifth estate, CTV W5, HVG, Time, Forbes, Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, US News & World Report, Businessweek, ABC TV Primetime Live, The Observer, The Economist, Channel Four Dispatches, BBC Panorama, ABC Radio Background Briefing and dozens more regional, national and international print and broadcast media outlets in Canada, the USA, Central + South America, Eastern + Western Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and ’ere else.

Author of a non-fiction chap-book, “Sideshow: The Howe Street Carnival”. Three-time recipient of the Western Magazine Award for Business features. In May of 1999, David Baines, intrepid reporter with The Vancouver Sun broadsheet, and I received a National Newspaper Award (

Canada

’s top print journalism award) for our coverage of the YBM Magnex / Semion Mogilevitch story – tracking Russian mafia monies+ in North America .

In its acknowledgement, the NNA noted: “The Vancouver Sun’s David Baines, working with freelance securities investigator and writer Adrian du Plessis, unraveled the intriguing tale of YBM Magnex International Inc., the Canadian company that operated as a money laundering vehicle for the Russian mafia. The Sun began its early work on the company’s murky business dealings and links to organized crime even as investors were driving its share prices to record levels on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Judges called it a thoroughly comprehensive effort that combined extraordinary initiative, research, analysis and writing."

I stepped away from active investigations of swindlers+ some 20 years ago – my final case revealing the presence of Russian 'mafiya' money behind YBM Magnex International Inc. - which, at its peak in 1997/98, had a market cap of CDN $1billion on the Toronto Stock Exchange (and then went to $zero). David Peterson, former Ontario Premier, was among the directors of YBM before it was publicly exposed as a fraud and a front for Russian money-laundering.

BBC's "Panorama" television program did a major feature on Semion Mogilevitch, (“The Billion Dollar Don”), the eminence grise behind this and other North American paper-plays (alt. spellings incl. Semeon + Mogilevich). Here’s a link to the documentary cued up to the TSE/Canadian segment:

“Grey Owl”, as Archibald Stansfeld ("Archie") Belaney of Hastings, Sussex, would brand himself, worked a spell on western consciousness. The Englishman who came to Canada in 1906 and, over succeeding decades, recast himself as indigenous, hoaxed America and what-was-then Great Britain – posing as a First Nations guardian-of-the-wild.

The impersonation was widely exposed after his 1938 death. Belaney's genuine concern for the natural environment was communicated through his fictions – a rare "con" in which a residual public good may accompany, and/or be by-product of, the more-oft corrosive interests of self.

In 1971, McGraw-Hill Book Co. announced plans to publish the autobiography of billionaire recluse industrialist Howard R. Hughes – ghost-written by Clifford Irving (an author whose previous book was titled "Fake"). Irving's Hughes book was one of the great hoaxes of the era.

Of those in the publishing and media world who enabled and furthered Irving’s scam, Stephen D. Isaacs, the late journalist/editor/academic commented: “They had all become true believers, because they had wanted desperately to believe.”

These days, Simon & Schuster bills its 2015-release "Red Notice" as the autobiography of tax-evading Hermitage fund / manager William Felix ("Bill") Browder – a pathologically-purposeful purveyor of porkies.

"Management Today" magazine reveals "Red Notice" is "helped along by a ghostwriter who Browder says worked with him on every single sentence." The paperback edition sets a surreal tone from the first sentence on its front-cover. "It's all true" is there attributed to Simon & Schuster best-selling fiction-writer Lee Child (pseudonym of James D. Grant).

Considering how straightforward a process it is to document the book's numerous falsities, one need question the method of fact-checkers, if any, behind such testimonial.