The family hiding in the bush after leaking Russian secrets

Lives Less Ordinary

Nick Stride said too much about his former boss, one of Putin’s closest allies.

Nick Stride, a builder from the UK, feared for his family’s safety after discovering alleged financial corruption while building First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov’s 140-million-dollar mansion in Moscow. Worried that his every movement was being watched, he hatched a plan to get out and put as much distance as possible between his loved ones and his former boss. They chose Australia. Nick then passed the secret accounting documents he’d taken to an investigative reporter, but by the time it came to publish, Nick and his family’s claim for political asylum in Australia was rejected. Seeing no way out, the family went on the run, hiding out amongst the snakes and crocodiles of the country’s unforgiving Dampier peninsula, every morning expecting a truck to pull up and tear his family apart.

The book about his odyssey is called Run For Your Life, by Sue Williams.

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Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Edgar Maddicott