WASHINGTON, June 26 (RIA Novosti) – Marc Rich, the notorious American commodities trader who made billions trading in the Soviet Union, died Wednesday in Switzerland at the age of 78. The cause of death was a stroke, according to a statement from his spokesman.
Rich pioneered oil trading in the 1970s, but fled the United States in 1983 when he was indicted for fraud, tax evasion, trading with Iran, and racketeering. After moving to Switzerland, Rich started doing business in the Soviet Union in 1990, selling grain, sugar and other products in exchange for oil, nickel, aluminum and other metals.
In his book “Godfather of the Kremlin,” Paul Klebnikov reported that at the peak of his influence in the USSR Rich controlled one third of the world spot market in aluminum.
Rich was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001 just hours before Clinton left office, but allegations of Rich’s ties to the so-called Russian mafia continued to circulate. ABC News reported that he had been named in a lawsuit that year as a business partner of known mobsters in the Russian aluminum business.
