davos kremlin critic bill browder wants governments to step up efforts to get to the riches squirrelled away by russian oligarchs and linked to president vladimir putin by forcing the accountants lawyers and others who set up murky legal and financial structures to become whistleblowers browder author of the nonfiction bestseller freezing order a true story of money laundering murder and surviving vladimir putins wrath says russias war in ukraine has increased attention on how oligarchs are custodians of the russian leaders wealthbut the oligarchs are not nave browder told the associated press on tuesday at the annual world economic forum meeting in davos theyve hired the best lawyers best asset protection specialists and there are shell companies and trust companies and offshore companies and nominees and proxies and the whole thing is extremely well thoughtthroughthe founder of heritage capital an early investor in postsoviet russia browder raised the alarm after his russian tax adviser sergei magnitsky died in a russian prison in 2009 he has become arguably one of the worlds biggest critics of putin ever since browder credited biden administration efforts to put a squeeze on putin and his government since the war began by putting a freeze on assets of russias central bank chasing the oligarchs halting exports of technology to russia and supplying weapons to ukrainebut when it comes to getting russian oligarchs money were only scratching the surface browder said theres only 35 oligarchs out of 118 who are on the forbes richest people list who have been sanctioned by the either the us eu uk canada or australia we need to get 118 he saidbrowder says their money is held in top banks in places like london new york and zurich as well as in real estate hedge funds and private equity funds its right in front of our eyes and the amounts are unbelievably big he saidi estimate that since vladimir putin took power he and the 1000 people around him have stolen 1 trillion from the russian state and that money is stored in our financial capitals he acknowledged that what he sees as the solution is quite radical forcing the people who set up these structures the enablers the lawyers the accountants the trustees under law to become whistleblowers for the governmentin other words put an amendment into all money laundering and all sanctions law to say that people who are involved in setting up structures for sanctioned individuals have to come forward with the information to the government or face a punishment of fines and imprisonment browder said jacques attali a former top french government official and past president of the european bank for reconstruction and development expressed hesitation about browders idea to begin with it must be said that a lawyer shouldnt do anything illegal and that would be enough said attali an eminence grise at davos a lawyer is necessarily at the service of his or her client you can strengthen legislation you cant