Word: joanovici
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...Joanovici, in the classic fashion of those who reinsure, did not neglect the other side: he contributed heavily to the French resistance, claims to have saved thousands of Jews from deportation. Resistance Leader Albert Bayet testified that "Joanovici supplied us with arms without which the 1944 Paris uprising could not have occurred." In the confusion of the liberation of France, Joseph even got a "certificate of honor" as a "resistance fighter without uniform," from the hands of Robert Lecourt, who became France's Minister of Justice. Police agents sent to investigate Joanovici later turned up as officers...
...Staggering Fine. In 1949 his luck wavered. Found guilty in Paris of speculation, tax evasion and "illicit profitmaking," Joanovici was sentenced to five years in prison and fined a staggering billion francs (roughly $3,000,000). After serving two years, he was let out but confined to the small southern city of Mende (pop. 7,700) in one of the most impoverished areas of France. Within months, Mende was a boom town. A telephone operator had to be hired whose sole job was handling Joanovici's calls to world capitals. His monthly phone bill ran to 600,000 francs...
Regularly every month Joanovici sent off a check for a million francs to the French treasury, boasted: "I am France's most conscientious taxpayer!" Admitted a business rival: "Armed simply with a telephone, Joanovici practically controlled the world price of copper scrap...
...November 1957 Joanovici got police permission to pay a visit to his mistress in Paris. He was not seen again; but the Minister of the Interior received a letter in which Joanovici "regretfully announced" that "I am not able to earn enough money to reimburse the state . . . therefore I am compelled to leave France." Days after his departure, the police unearthed a vast financial scandal: groups of businessmen had looted a billion francs from the treasury by obtaining tax rebates on nonexistent metals and other goods. Said the chief accused, one Pierre Bercque: "I was just...
...Joanovici was reported seen in Germany, Switzerland, Egypt. But he turned up in Haifa, Israel, in a small group of Jewish refugees arriving by plane from Morocco. He gave his name as Joseph Levy. "All ten of the passengers on the plane had passports in the name of Joseph Levy," he adds with a grin...