Marc Rich (born Marcell David Reich; December 18, 1934 – June 26, 2013) was a Belgian-American commodities trader, financier, and businessman. He founded the commodities company Glencore and was later indicted in the United States on federal charges of tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering, and selling Iranian oil to Israel during the Iran hostage crisis. He fled to Switzerland at the time of the indictment and never returned to the United States.
He received a widely criticized presidential pardon from President Bill Clinton, on his last day in office. Rich had donated large sums to Israeli officials and organizations, which had pleaded extensively on his behalf. Rich's ex-wife Denise had also made donations to the Democratic Party.
Early life
Rich was born in 1934 to a Jewish family in Antwerp, Belgium. In 1941 his parents emigrated with their son to the United States to escape the Nazis. They traveled via Vichy France, Spain, Portugal, and the liner Serpa Pinto.
His father opened a jewelry store in Kansas City, Missouri, then moved the family to Queens, New York City in 1950, where he started a company that imported Bengali jute to make burlap bags, and later started a business trading agricultural products and helped found the American Bolivian Bank (Banco Boliviano Americano S.A). He later attended New York University, but dropped out after one semester to work for Philipp Brothers (now known as Phibro LLC) in 1954 where he worked with Pincus Green.
Business career
At Philipp Brothers, he eventually became a dealer in metals, learning about the international raw materials markets and commercial trading with poor, third world nations. He helped run the company's operations in Cuba, Bolivia, and Spain.
His tutelage under Philipp Brothers afforded Rich the opportunity to develop relationships with various dictatorial régimes and embargoed nations. Rich would later tell biographer Daniel Ammann that he had made his "most important and most profitable" business deals by violating international trade embargoes and doing business with the apartheid regime of South Africa. He also counted Fidel Castro's Cuba, Marxist Angola, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania, and Augusto Pinochet's Chile among the clients he served. According to Ammann, "he had no regrets whatsoever.... He used to say 'I deliver a service. People want to sell oil to me and other people wanted to buy oil from me. I am a businessman, not a politician.'" Iran would become Rich's most important supplier of crude oil for more than 15 years. Rich sold Iranian oil to Israel through a secret pipeline. Due to his good relationship with Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini, Rich helped give Mossad's agents contacts in Iran.
He popularised the use of letters of credit in the oil trade.
His real estate company, Marc Rich Real Estate GmbH, was involved in large developer projects (e.g., in Prague, Czech Republic). Rich and Marvin Davis bought 20th Century Fox in 1981. Due to the indictment filed against Rich for violating U.S. trade sanctions against his deals with Iran while Rich was living in Switzerland, his assets including his holding in 20th Century Fox were frozen. Davis was permitted by authorities to purchase Rich's holding and subsequently sold this to Rupert Murdoch for $232 million during March 1984.
Business Insider reported Rich had an estimated net worth of US$2.5 billion.
U.S. indictment and pardon
thumb|2001 The Controversial Pardon of International Fugitive Marc Rich
In 1983, Rich and partner Pincus Green were indicted on 65 criminal counts, including income tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering, and trading with Iran during the oil embargo (at a time when Iranian revolutionaries were still holding American citizens hostage).
Learning of the plans for the indictment, Rich fled Rich's companies eventually pleaded guilty to 35 counts of tax evasion and paid $90 million in fines, narrowly evading capture in Britain, Germany, Finland, and Jamaica.
On January 20, 2001, hours before leaving office, U.S. President Bill Clinton granted Rich a controversial presidential pardon.