Murder by Fire

By Karl Taro Greenfeld

Billionaire financier Edmond Safra, 67, excelled at making three things: money, friends and enemies. Monaco police were focusing on the latter as possible suspects after the Lebanese founder of the Republic National Bank suffocated in an arson fire at his penthouse. Safra had been barricaded in a bathroom along with his nurse, Viviane Torrent, while knife-wielding assailants, apparently frustrated at being unable to reach Safra, set fire to his domed, ultra-high security Monte Carlo retreat. Monaco's chief prosecutor, Daniel Serdet, reported that robbery was not a motive. Nothing had been stolen. "We are treating the attack as a murder," a police spokesman said. "We believe it was motivated by Mr. Safra's powerful position in the banking world." Last year Safra's bank had filed reports tipping off regulators to an international Russian money-laundering scandal that resulted in the freezing of Russian mob-related accounts and one of the largest banking investigations in history.

Safra, listed in Forbes magazine as the world's 199th richest person, was scion of a banking family that built its first fortune financing the Ottoman Empire caravan trade. Safra made his mark adhering to the old-fashioned banking-business model of securing deposits and then investing them in safe, modest-yielding assets. The secretive billionaire had long been known as a generous contributor to Jewish causes around the world. Last week he was on the verge of wrapping up his life's work, the sale of Republic National and Safra Republic holdings to HSBC Holdings, Britain's largest bank, for $10 billion. Banking experts believe the sale will be completed despite Safra's death.

--By Karl Taro Greenfeld