The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

heroin case. The two U.S. marshals brought with them detailed maps of Rich’s mansion and business offices as part of the ingenious plan they had devised to capture Rich. They even knew the gradient of the street in Baar. Their reconnaissance had discovered that a helicopter could land on the street, if necessary.
    Safir’s plan was to overpower Rich and secretly smuggle him out ofthe country. It was all to take place without the knowledge of the Swiss authorities and was thoroughly illegal. He wanted to ferry the oil trader to either Germany or France over Switzerland’s “green border”—the national boundary characterized by numerous border crossings that are not subject to constant to constant surveillance by Swiss customs officers. Safir left nothing to chance. Before traveling onward to Switzerland, the U.S. marshal had met with local police in Germany in order to discuss the case. Shortly before departing on his delicate mission, Safir had made sure that the U.S. office of Interpol had sent an arrest warrant for Rich “with a view to extradition” to the Interpol headquarters in Saint-Cloud on the outskirts of Paris.
    “WANTED INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL” served as a title for the arrest warrant that had been signed on October 9, 1985, by Richard C. Stiener, then the director of the U.S. office of Interpol. Marc Rich, it said, was “a commodities trader/businessman” who was wanted on charges including “Income Tax Evasion, Racketeering, Trading with the Enemy.” The maximum possible penalty for these charges amounted to “325 years’ imprisonment and/or100 million forfeiture and/or fines.” Rich’s physical description on the warrant—177.8 cm, 81 kg, black hair, brown eyes—was accompanied by a photograph. It was the only recent photograph of Rich; prosecutors had taken it from a 1984
Forbes
article. The warrant described a “slight red mark on left cheek” as one of Rich’s “distinguishing marks.”
    The marshals had covered every angle. As soon as Safir crossed the Swiss border with Rich, he could drop his tourist disguise. Rich would have immediately been arrested by any French or German police officer. However, Safir knew that his activities as a U.S. marshal in Switzerland were illegal. Article 271 of the Swiss Penal Code prohibits anyone from undertaking action for a foreign country without Swiss approval. Punishment for violating this law would be nothing less than a prison term. Safir and Ferrarone were well aware that kidnapping Rich was a serious offense. They were prepared to take the risk, however, as Rich’s arrest was of the utmost importance.
    The two undercover marshals tried to keep a low profile while waiting for an opportune moment in front of Rich’s office building in Zug—with limited success. Two men approached them after a while and identified themselves as police officers. They wanted to see Safir and Ferrarone’s identification. Safir knew immediately that his cover was blown. In the most courteous of tones, the Swiss police threatened the two U.S. marshals: “If you take any more action in Switzerland, you will be arrested.”
    The U.S. marshals called this type of secret operation “extraordinary rendition,” a form of state-sanctioned kidnapping. It was a term that would become widely known in George W. Bush’s “War on Terror.” Such methods have their origins in nineteenth-century bounty hunting. One of the most prominent examples is the case of the former CIA agent Edwin Wilson, who was involved in the illegal export of arms and explosives. In 1982 an undercover U.S. marshal tricked Wilson into leaving his Libyan safe haven. Wilson flew to a meeting in the Dominican Republic, where he was seized and put on a plane to the United States. 1 The U.S. Supreme Court later explicitly legitimized such abductions in the now famous case of Humberto Álvarez Machain. 2 This Mexican physician, who was allegedly involved in the killing of a U.S. drug agent, was abducted from Mexico by bounty hunters and brought to trial in the United States. (He was acquitted.)
A Leak in the U.S. Administration
     
    On that foggy day on Lake Zug in October 1985, Howard Safir was suddenly struck by a terrible thought—there was a leak somewhere in the U.S. administration or in the international law enforcement establishment. Safir was by no means wrong. Although the authorities still cannot officially confirm it was the case, a Swiss official who was involved in the affair