Edmond Safra

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Edmond Safra (Arabic: ادموند يعقوب صفرا‎; August 6, 1932, Beirut, Lebanon – December 3, 1999, Monaco) was a Jewish Brazilian-naturalized, Syrian-Lebanese banker who continued the family tradition of banking in Lebanon, Brazil and Switzerland.

[edit] Life of Edmond Safra

The Safra family is a Jewish Syrian family from Aleppo^[1]^[2]^[3]. The Safras were engaged in the financing of trade between Aleppo, Istanbul and Alexandria^[4]. His father, Jacob Safra, had opened the J. E. Safra Bank in 1920. By the time he was sixteen, Edmond Safra was working at his father's bank and was engaged in the precious metals and foreign exchange aspects of the business.^{[citations needed]}

In 1949, the Safra family moved to Italy. Edmond Safra worked for a trading company in Milan. The family moved once again in 1952, this time to Brazil, where Edmond Safra and his father founded their first Brazilian financial institution in 1955. With over 100 branches in Brazil, today the Safra's family are very active through the Safra Group of Financial Institutions holding of Banco Safra S.A. Safra National Bank of New York, Banque Safra Luxembourg, Banque Safra Suisse.

In 1956, Edmond Safra settled in Geneva to set up a private bank, the Trade Development Bank, which grew from an original $1 million to $5 billion during the 1980s. He found the business climate to be favourable and extended his financial empire, making it a point of honour to satisfy his wealthy clients from Monte Carlo to Miami. Safra also founded the Republic National Bank of New York in 1966. He later opened Republic National Bank of New York (Suisse) in Geneva, and in 1988 formed Safra Republic Holdings S.A. Republic bank operated 80 branches in the New York area, making it the number three branch network in the metropolitan region behind Citigroup and Chase Manhattan. In 1988, he also founded Safra Republic Holdings S.A., a firm specializing in wealth management.

Edmond Safra became famous in 1983 through the sale of the Trade Development Bank to American Express for more than $450 million, a transaction that turned into a legal battle between the two parties. The financier came out on top, winning damages from American Express.

By the early 1990s, Edmond Safra's fortune was an estimated at $2.5 billion. He was a major philanthropist. As he approached his 60s, the financier shared his time between his home in Geneva, New York and his villas on the French Riviera. Weakened by Parkinson's disease, Safra required nursing care. In December 1999, Edmond Safra was killed in a fire that was deemed arson.^[5]

Ted Maher, the U.S.-born nurse was arrested ^[6] under suspicion of starting the fire, and was convicted of the crime in 2002 by Monaco Court. He claimed that he started the fire to carry out a daring rescue, and thus increase his standing in the Safra family's eyes but he allegedly lost control of the fire unintentionally. This version of the murder is disputed by many who believe the plot to be extremely convenient.

The murder facts have been scrutinized by several media "mystery solvers" such as 60 Minutes, CBS 48 Hours, Dateline NBC and Dominick Dunne in Vanity Fair. The judge of the trial at the time has since confessed that the trial against Maher was fixed from the beginning according to one of Maher's defence lawyers- Michael Griffith states the explosive 2002 trial in Monaco is under investigation by the principality's judiciary after a revelation by Jean-Christophe Hullin, chief investigative judge on the case. Hullin recently disclosed that a hush-hush, pre-trial meeting was held among himself, Monaco's chief prosecutor and another member of the defence team headed by Griffith. The three allegedly agreed Maher should be convicted and get 10 years in jail. A jury of three judges and three laymen did just that. "It's a terrible situation - just disgusting," said Griffith. Although there are no doubts that Maher was the perpetrator (ask his own confession stated), few people believe or understand the motives for the crime. Yet Griffith stated "Poor Ted has spent eight years of his life for a trial that was fixed."