# Sergei Magnitsky Russian tax adviser (1972–2009) who, while working for [[Bill Browder]]'s [[Hermitage Capital Management]], uncovered a $230 million tax-refund fraud allegedly carried out by Russian officials using shell companies seized from Hermitage. After testifying about the scheme, Magnitsky was arrested in 2008 on tax-evasion charges widely regarded as retaliatory. He was held without trial for nearly a year in Moscow's Butyrka prison, denied medical treatment, and died in custody on November 16, 2009, at age 37 — beaten and left untreated, according to a later report by Russia's own human-rights council. His death became the catalyst for Browder's global anti-impunity campaign and the namesake of the [[Magnitsky Act]] (2012) and the subsequent Global Magnitsky framework, which authorize visa bans and asset freezes against human-rights abusers and corrupt officials worldwide. In a 2013 posthumous trial — the first such proceeding in Russian history — Magnitsky was convicted of tax evasion, a verdict condemned internationally as a show trial.