Fugitive financier Marc Rich dies in Switzerland

Marc Rich, a fugitive financier who made deals with shady international regimes and was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list before his controversial presidential pardon on Bill Clinton's final day in office in 2001, died Wednesday at a hospital in Lucerne, Switzerland. He was 78.

He had a stroke, his company, the Marc Rich Group, said in a statement.

Rich was a commodities trader who made a billion-dollar fortune by doing business with Iran, Iraq, Romania, Russia, Libya and other countries sometimes at odds with the United States.

Called the "King of Commodities," Rich dealt in almost anything that could be mined, harvested or drilled from the surface of the earth, including oil, minerals, precious metals, timber and grain. At various times, he was reported to have virtual control over the international markets for aluminum, silver, tin and mercury.

In the early 1980s, he owned half of the 20th Century Fox studio in Hollywood before selling his share to Rupert Murdoch for $250 million. Forbes magazine named him one of the 400 richest Americans and estimated his personal fortune at $2.5 billion.

Rich defied oil embargoes, price controls and other niceties of law to buy oil from Iran and Iraq and resell it to apartheid-era South Africa and other outlaw nations. Although notoriously shy of publicity, the multilingual Rich was said to have had personal dealings with many infamous dictators, including Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

He was credited with developing the "spot market" business practice, or a short-term purchase that could be quickly resold for big profits. Concealing those profits led to Rich's indictment in 1983 by federal prosecutors in New York, under the direction of then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani.

One of the most damning charges against Rich — trading with the enemy, for his dealings with Iran — was later dropped.

Prosecutors turned down an offer to drop charges in return for a payment of $100 million. Several of Rich's corporate interests ended up paying more than $200 million in fines and penalties, and some lower-level business collaborators went to jail.

But the man himself could not be found. Before he could be arrested, Rich cleaned out his expansive Fifth Avenue apartment in New York and moved to Zug, Switzerland. (Green, his business partner, also fled the United States and is living in Switzerland.)

Rich said he renounced his U.S. citizenship — a claim the U.S. government disputed — and was a citizen of Belgium, Israel and Spain, where he had a palatial seaside estate.

For years, Rich was on the FBI's Most Wanted list, alongside Osama bin Laden. He was almost captured several times, including once while trying to board a plane in London in 1986. Five years later, Rich's private jet turned around in midair en route to Finland, where U.S. agents were waiting to arrest him.

Soon after the pardon was granted on Jan. 20, 2001, Clinton drew intense criticism when it was revealed that Rich's ex-wife, Denise, a Manhattan socialite and songwriter, had given more than $1 million to Democratic causes, including $450,000 to a foundation for Clinton's library and museum.

A subsequent federal investigation found no evidence that Rich had purchased his pardon through his former wife's political contributions.

Rich remained in Europe for the rest of his life and was not known to have returned to the United States.

Rich married Denise Eisenberg in 1966. They had a contentious divorce in the 1990s in which she received a settlement of several hundred millions dollars. She now lives in New York.

Rich's second marriage, to Gisela Rossi, also ended in divorce. Survivors include two daughters from his first marriage, Ilona Schachter-Rich and Danielle Kilstock Rich. When a third daughter, Gabrielle Rich, died of leukemia in 1996, Rich did not return for her funeral for fear of being arrested.