From Billionaire to Bust

Just because you've made a billion dollars doesn't mean your problems are over! For one thing, you could lose it all. For another thing, you could get yourself into such a pickle that all your money can't help you. Here's a list of people who had bad ends even though they saw their bank accounts expand to a billion dollars or more in their life time.

Edmond Safra - died in fire

Edmond Safra rose to fame in 1983 through selling the Trade Development Bank to American Express for a tidy $450 million, a business deal which, it turns out, was bitterly contested. His personal fortune was an estimated at $2.5 billion. But, he had Parkinson's disease which necessitated live-in care. And in 1999, a fire broke out in his home and killed him. A court ruling in 2002 convicted his nurse, Ted Maher, of the crime of arson. Maher actually confessed to setting the fire but claimed that his motive was to stage a fake rescue. The exact facts of the case are disputed, and efforts to retry it are underway.

Ashraf Marwan - fall from window, possible murder

Ashraf Marwan was a billionaire in Egypt and allegedly either a spy for Israel or a counter-spy. He was chief of staff to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and named head of the Arab Industrialists Group. He was a business partner with Mohamed al-Fayed, the owner of Harrod's department stores and father of Dodi Al-Fayed (see next entry). Ashraf was certainly caught up in Egyptian politics with allegations of his being a spy when on June 27, 2007, he fell out of the window of his fifth-floor apartment, and died of a ruptured aorta. Police are investigating this as a murder.

Dodi Al-Fayed - car crash

It was Dodi who was riding alongside Princess Diana on August 31, 1997, when that fateful car crash took both of their lives. Dodi was the son of the Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed, and was an accomplished movie producer.

Kenneth Lay - heart failure (suicide?), facing conviction and bankruptcy

Kenneth Lay is the poster child for tragic billionaires everywhere. He is of course the famous CEO of Enron, who at one point seemed so on top of the world that nothing could stop him - his company was claiming $111 billion in revenue. He co-chaired the G8 summit and chaired the 1992 Republican National Convention. he was even getting tapped as a possible candidate for President Bush's Treasury secretary. Then Enron went bust, Lay was forced to resign, and then Lay was indicted by a grand jury of ten counts of fraud and conspiracy in May of 2006. Two months later, he was found dead, apparently of heart failure but it was said that he might have committed suicide with poison.

Alberto Vilar - went broke, convicted of fraud

Alberto Vilar made a name for himself investing in tech stocks and promising to build opera houses - and losing money in the former and welshing on the latter. While he briefly achieved billionaire status, he lost it just as quick and was eventually arrested for defrauding investors of million of dollars in 2005.

Sanjiv Sidhu - just went broke

Another would-be technology wizard, Sanjiv Sidhu built a giant fortune through his software company, i2 Technologies. By the year 2000, he was Forbes' 24th richest American, with $10 billion to his name. But then, our old friend the Tech Bubble of 2000 burst, and with it Sidhu's wealth - it is now estimated that he's down to $100 million, and nobody even remembers what i2 Technologies does anymore. Well, OK, $100 million isn't "broke" as you'd call it, but we're talking relative here.

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