Russia’s Interior Ministry says Hermitage Capital Management CEO Bill Browder has been charged in absentia with illegally purchasing shares of Russia’s energy giant, Gazprom.
Earlier this week, the Interior Ministry said that Browder, a U.S.-born British citizen, allegedly used illegal tax schemes to get the shares.
Russian prosecutors have already charged Browder and his partner, Sergei Magnitsky, with tax evasion.
Magnitsky’s posthumous trial is planned for March 11.
Magnitsky died in prison in 2009 after accusing government officials of corruption.
Magnitsky implicated mid-ranking Interior Ministry and tax officials in a $230 million scheme to defraud the government.
Pro-Kremlin NTV television channel aired a program attacking Browder for allegedly working for the British secret service and standing to gain from the “mysterious” deaths of his employees.