The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

favorite maxim: “I can make a million mistakes, you can make none.”
    The U.S. marshals called this form of psychological warfare “mistake-provoking strategy.” The Riddler was driven by the hope that Richwould eventually make some kind of mistake—sometime, somewhere, somehow—but Rich never did slip up. “Marc Rich is described as a man of stealth,” Hill says. “In reality, he paid very well for security. His infrastructure was so wide, he knew everybody, he knew everything. He was so rich, he had so much power. He had security everywhere. People were on the lookout for suspicious signs. He had the money to buy what he needed. It was like tackling a country.” Seldom had U.S. investigators proved themselves as creative as in the case of Rich and Green. They masqueraded as commodities traders in order to keep their most important business contacts in dozens of countries under surveillance. They were in regular contact with local flight regulatory authorities in order to determine if Rich had booked a ticket on a scheduled flight. They sought information from customs authorities all over the world to determine if their targets were currently visiting the country in question. They even sought the assistance of the cartographic company Jeppesen Sanderson, which had a near global monopoly on map and navigational material, asking to be notified whenever Rich’s pilots ordered new map material for exotic destinations. 5 They kept in contact with Swiss police, who unofficially assisted the marshals, although officially they were prohibited from doing so. “We had a cordial relationship with the Swiss police,” Hill added. The marshals were hoping for a decisive tip-off about Rich’s travel plans.
London Fog Saved Rich
     
    In November 1987, two years after Howard Safir’s failed mission in Switzerland, it finally seemed as if the authorities were presented with an opportunity to catch Rich. Hill’s efforts to find regular contacts among Rich’s business partners had finally paid off. One of these business partners had betrayed Rich and informed the authorities that Rich intended to fly to London the following weekend. The trader would be on board a private Gulfstream IV that would take off from Zürich-Kloten Airport and land at London Biggin Hill Airport in Kent.
    Ken Hill, alias the Riddler, immediately set off for London, where he liaised with the Fraud Unit as well as the Extradition Unit of London’s Metropolitan Police. On a cool fall morning, the U.S. marshal and his British colleagues waited for Rich in a comfortable lounge at Biggin Hill while keeping an eye on the airstrip. The airport, which was the principal fighter station for the British Royal Air Force during World War II, was now a civilian airport for affluent business travelers who appreciated its convenient access to the city of London. The U.S. marshal had known for quite some time what he would say when he finally had the opportunity to arrest Marc Rich:
You made the one mistake.
Hill even had one of the first-ever satellite telephones in order to report the arrest as soon as he had Rich in his custody.
    It was another foggy day at Biggin Hill. The fog grew thicker and thicker as Hill sat waiting for Rich, and soon he could just make out the faint outlines of the airstrip. At 8:00 A.M . the weather service reported that the fog now covered half of mainland Britain. Hundreds of flights would have to be redirected or canceled.
    Rich was sitting in the Gulfstream on the way to a party in London when his flight, too, was canceled. The fog proved to be a stroke of luck for the wanted trader. The airplane was forced to turn around while still above the European continent and fly back to Zürich-Kloten in Switzerland. Hill woke his superior, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Comey (who would later serve as deputy attorney general under George W. Bush), in New York at 4:00 A.M . local time to give him the bad news. “Damned fog,” Hill cursed quietly into his satellite phone. 6
“I Was Very Careful”
     
    Was Rich aware of the U.S. authorities’ attempt to arrest him? “In general, yes,” Rich tells me and takes a bite of his
Tafelspitz
, an Austrian specialty consisting of boiled beef. We are having lunch at the Glashof, Rich’s favorite restaurant in Zug. Although the restaurant is just across the street from the office, both of Rich’s bodyguards accompany us tolunch. One of them walks ahead of us while the other brings up the