The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

into Rich’s network. Rich had almost made the one mistake that Ken Hill was hoping for. “We tried luring him to countries where he could have been extradited,” the former U.S. marshal confided. “Did Rich have close calls? We certainly think so.”
    Rich’s ability to evade the agents of the most powerful nation in the world for nearly twenty years was largely due to Azulay’s good instincts and experience. Azulay was the perfect candidate, a former colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces and a high-ranking Mossad agent who had worked undercover in Spain during the 1970s, a time when Spain had no diplomatic ties with Israel. He was later assigned to one of the most difficult regions in the intelligence world: Lebanon. He had a top-secret base in Beirut, and he was smuggled in and out of the country by sea. It was during this time that Azulay met Ehud Barak, who was the head of Israeli military intelligence and would later become the prime minister of Israel. 7
    In 1983–84, after having resigned from the Mossad, Azulay was advising a Spanish bank on how to deal with Basque terrorists when he was introduced to Marc Rich. Rich engaged his services during the time of Giuliani’s indictment against him. “He had security problems. He had business intelligence problems,” Azulay remembers and explains how he went about determining Rich’s security vulnerabilities. “It’s not magic. It’s about accurately evaluating each situation. For example, when Marc was invited to somewhere, I used to ask, ‘How did the invitation come about? Who made the invitation? Who is behind the invitation? What is the reason for the invitation? Does it make sense to you?’ It’s all about assessing what is plausible.” Azulay had access to the best of security and intelligence networks. He personally knew many European intelligence officials, as he had cooperated with them in the past.
    Rich was well aware that he could be arrested in many of the countries he visited and extradited to the United States. He therefore was verycareful when planning his travels. He avoided taking regular scheduled flights where possible. He preferred to fly by private jet—but never his own plane, as this would have been much too dangerous. The registration number would have served as a flashing red beacon to the world’s police authorities. If Rich flew to South America or the Ca rib be an, he had to be extremely careful that his plane avoided U.S. airspace. He always registered in hotels under an assumed name. For a time, Rich rode in a bulletproof Mercedes in Switzerland. A small team of bodyguards—battle-hardened Israelis at first, and later a group of specially trained Swiss—accompanied him everywhere. A sophisticated surveillance system allowed the driver and license plate of every car that approached Rich’s residence to be recorded and registered. The local police were notified for the slightest of reasons. The system even prevented a mentally ill Canadian, who was obsessed by the media reports on Marc Rich and who had killed his own parents, from penetrating the private Rich residence.
Pitiful Attempts
     
    Rich’s private security team simply had an edge on the U.S. government’s multiagency task force. In the fall of 1987 a U.S. marshal assigned to the project barely missed apprehending Rich in France after Rich canceled a meeting with an African oil minister. 8 Agents apparently tried to trick Rich into flying to Düsseldorf, Germany, for a business meeting, but his private plane never arrived, “leaving U.S. authorities stewing at the airport.” 9 In September 1991 the FBI and Interpol attempted to arrest Rich in Finland. Pertti Ruoho, a Finnish manager of the oil concern Neste, had told agents that Rich was flying to Helsinki in order to purchase large amounts of his company’s stock. 10 Ruoho promised to provide Rich’s itinerary. Finnish police spent the whole weekend feverishly checking passenger lists and passports, but Rich’s name could not be found. The U.S. Marshals Service believes to this day that Rich’s plane diverted to Sweden at the very last minute after he had somehow received a warning.
    Another hot tip had Rich traveling to Jamaica, where he had extensive business dealings, but “we missed him by a day or two,” said Howard Safir. 11 Rich laughs and shakes his head when I mention this story to him in the Glashof restaurant: “I don’t believe it. I was in Jamaica in 1966 during my first