经典回顾：逃税大户里奇的奢侈大逃亡

    伊万•博伊斯基（证券内幕交易案犯——译注）通过和美国证券交易委员会（SEC）以及联邦检察官达成协议，没有采取陷入法律纠纷的金融家们一贯使用的伎俩——逃到不会引渡美国逃犯的国家。当年52岁的商品交易员马克•里奇却选择先飞走，然后再努力处理烂摊子。作为美国历史上最大的逃税案，案犯里奇面临65项刑事指控，可判处监禁325年，他在国外可能有得待了。

    但他的逃亡生活不仅奢侈丰富，更赚得盆满钵满。和逃犯罗伯特•威斯科不同，里奇没有把赃物不断打点给加勒比海周围的官员，也没有在几年后可怜地躲藏在古巴，反而在瑞士过着逍遥自在的生活。虽然他长期回避美国媒体，但在11月，他和《财富》杂志（FORTUNE）人员聊了一天，这是他从纽约溜走后第一次接受非欧洲媒体的采访。

    采访当天，他梳着平滑的大背头，浓密的鬓角显出脸部的消瘦，看上去一脸文雅的阴沉。在办公室，他一支接一支地抽着进口雪茄，灌着健怡可乐。里奇总部设在瑞士的Marc Rich & Co. AG已经是全球最大的国际大宗商品交易公司之一。他说公司在1985年的交易额高达120亿美元，税前利润超过1亿美元，公司资本金达到9.5亿美元。

    里奇在离苏黎世15英里外如诗如画的楚格州有一户5居室的住所，屋内布满了珍贵的艺术品，而且他在圣莫里茨还拥有一间滑雪小木屋。他经常光顾苏黎士和卢塞恩的音乐会，美国妻子在欧洲流行乐坛也相当出名。通过昂贵的公关和豪爽的慈善捐助，里奇在瑞士社会获得了类似于尊敬的待遇。

    旅居海外对里奇来说算不上新体验了。他出生于比利时的安特卫普，8岁时随父母来到美国。作为总部在纽约的菲利谱兄弟公司【Philipp Brothers，现为所罗门（Salomon Inc）的子公司】的新秀商品交易员，他还在西班牙住过14年。但他仍渴望回美国。“我非常渴求能够回去，”他操着略带欧洲口音的英语说。“我每天都在想念美国，我母亲和岳父岳母都在那儿。这个国家曾经慷慨地接纳过我和父母。”（里奇父亲去年在纽约逝世，由于联邦特工会逮捕他，里奇未能出席葬礼，他感到十分悲痛。）

    为了寻求解决途径，里奇聘用了一支颇具影响力的法律团队，由华盛顿超级律师爱德华•贝内特•威廉姆斯领队，成员包括尼克松时期白宫前特别法律顾问伦纳德•加门特，曾任艾森豪威尔政府内阁秘书及罗纳德•里根首次就职演讲联合主席的华盛顿公共关系顾问罗伯特•格雷，他们都以预付费用的方式参与。

    “我犯过错误，”里奇说。这话听起来像是要开始悔悟。“我想我的名誉将永远不可能完全恢复。”这下才明确他是在说法律策略。他争辩说自己真正的问题是形象问题。“人们用可怕的方式描绘我，”他说。“把我说成是工作狂、不合群、赚钱机器。这不是我的真实形象。我是一个谦逊、平和的人，绝没有做过任何违法的事。”有时候他扮演起受害者的角色：“在我身上发生的一连串不幸并没有动摇我对美国的信心。”

    美国司法部（Justice Department）可不吃他这套。在检察官看来，里奇和他52岁的搭档平卡斯•格林（绰号“粉爷”）是完完全全的逃犯。美国助理检察官马丁•奥尔巴赫称，如果能逮到这俩被告，他们办公室已经准备好上法庭。对美国当局而言，里奇和格林并不亚于威斯科那样的大罪犯。执法官们设计了各种方案诱鱼上钩，试图诱捕他们，特别是较为活跃的里奇。他几次靠近诱饵，却总在最后一刻溜走。（财富中文网）

    注：阅读完整版文章，请点击财富英文网。

    译者：默默

    By striking a deal with the SEC and federal prosecutors, Ivan Boesky avoided the hoary tactic of financiers in legal trouble -- the quick flight to a country that will not extradite U.S. fugitives. Commodities trader Marc Rich, 52, fled first and tried to deal later. Facing a 65-count criminal indictment that could result in a 325-year prison term -- the biggest tax evasion case in U.S. history -- he may be abroad for a long time.

    His life on the lam is luxurious -- and lucrative. Unlike fugitive Robert Vesco, who is holed up less than splendidly in Cuba after years of spending his booty bribing various officials around the Caribbean, Rich is living grandly in Switzerland. Though he has long avoided the U.S. press, Rich spent a day talking to FORTUNE in November, his first interview with a non-European publication since he skipped out of New York.

    Today his slim face is framed by slicked-back hair and bushy sideburns, and he has an air of dour refinement. In his office he chain-smokes imported cigars and downs Diet Coke. Rich's Swiss-based international commodities trading company, Marc Rich & Co. AG, has become one of the biggest in the world. He says that the company earned more than $100 million before taxes on trading volume of $12 billion in 1985 and that its capital stands at $950 million.

    Rich has a five-bedroom house filled with valuable art in the picturesque village of Zug, 15 miles south of Zurich, and a ski chalet in St. Moritz. He is a regular at concerts in Zurich and Lucerne. His American wife has become a rather famous European pop-record star. Thanks to an expensive P.R. campaign and expansive charitable giving, Rich has achieved something resembling respect in Swiss society.

    Living abroad is not a new experience for him. Born in Antwerp, Rich came to the U.S. with his parents at age 8. As a rising young commodities trader for New York-based Philipp Brothers, now a subsidiary of Salomon Inc., he resided in Spain for 14 years. Still, returning to America has become an obsession. ''I want very badly to be able to go back,'' he says, speaking in a faintly European accent. ''I think about the U.S. every day. My mother is there and my in-laws. It's a generous country that accepted my parents and me.'' (When his father died in New York last September, Rich was pained not to attend the funeral. Federal agents would have arrested him.)

    To find some way out Rich has assembled an influential legal team headed by Washington superlawyer Edward Bennett Williams and including Leonard Garment, former special counsel on the Nixon White House staff. Robert Gray, the Washington public relations consultant who was secretary to the Cabinet in the Eisenhower Administration and co-chairman of Ronald Reagan's first inaugural, is on retainer.

    ''I've made mistakes,'' Rich says, in what starts out sounding like contrition. ''I guess my reputation will never fully recover.'' Then it becomes clear he is talking about legal strategy. He argues that what he really has is an image problem. ''I've been portrayed in a horrible way,'' he says, ''as a workaholic, a loner, a money machine. It's not a true picture. I'm a modest, quiet person who has never done anything illegal.'' Sometimes he portrays himself as victim: ''What happened to me was an unfortunate chain of events that hasn't shaken my faith in the U.S.''

    The Justice Department isn't buying any of that. In the prosecutors' view, Rich and partner Pincus ''Pinky'' Green, 52, are simply fugitives. Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Auerbach says his office is ready to go to trial if it can get its hands on the defendants. For U.S. authorities, Rich and Green are Vesco-size targets. Marshals have designed tantalizing schemes to nab them, especially Rich, who is the more active of the two. Rich has neared the bait several times, only to slip away at the last moment.