A prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin said British security services warned him that he could be in danger ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The warning, passed along by Swiss security services, came after two suspected Russian spies were caught posing as plumbers in August, U.S.-born British financier Bill Browder told Axios.
“I can’t say for sure, but I believe the two were connected,” Browder said. “I’ve been coming here for 23 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever received a security warning about the Russians.”
He said he thinks the Russians were “planning an operation” against him, though nothing has yet linked the suspected spies to him.
Browder, who is the CEO of Hermitage Capital, was expelled from Russia in 2005, and the offices of Hermitage, which was the largest foreign investment fund in Russia, were raided.
His lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, later revealed a massive fraud scheme allegedly involving Russian officials. Magnitsky died in a Russian prison in 2009 after being tortured.
After his death, Browder pushed Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, which sanctioned Russian officials and other individuals accused of human rights violations.
“The Russians are particularly mad at me right now,” Browder said, “Because we’re on the verge of getting a European Magnitsky Act.”
Russia has been accused of assassinating numerous critics of the Kremlin abroad in recent years. In March 2018, Sergei Skripal, a double agent for Britain’s intelligence services, and his daughter were poisoned in England. The British government accused Russia of attempted murder and expelled Russian diplomats from the country. Russia has denied the allegations.
Earlier this week, Zurich’s Tages-Anzeiger newspaper reported that police questioned two Russian men in Davos after their unusually long stay at the high-end ski resort hosting the annual conference.
Swiss officials and police suspected the pair of being Russian intelligence agents, posing as plumbers, that were there to install surveillance equipment around town to monitor the private conversations of world leaders and wealthy attendees during the World Economic Forum.
A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Bern dismissed that the notion that the men were undercover.
