Grubstakers - Episode 71: Lily Safra and the Strange Deaths of Her Husbands

Episode Date: June 4, 2019

This week we're talking about Lily Safra, the Brazilian billionaire who has had four husbands and seen two of them die in mysterious circumstances. We explore her life, we discuss the lingering questions surrounding her 2nd and 4th husbands, and we debate whether she should be included in the rarefied list of truly self made billionaires. Credit to the author Isabel Vincent and her book "Gilded Lily: Lily Safra: The Making of One of the World's Wealthiest Widows" for being the basis of this episode.

First they think you're crazy, then they fight you, and then all of a sudden you change the world. Berlusconi flatly denies that any mafia money helped him begin a start in the dynasty. I have always had a thing for black people. I like black people. I'm telling you, these stories are funnier than the jokes you can tell. I said, what the fuck is a brain scientist? I was like, that's not a real job. Tell me the truth. But anyway.

All right, you animals. Welcome back to Grubstakers, the podcast about billionaires. I'm Sean P. McCarthy, and I'm here. Everybody's with me. Yogi Poliwag. Andy Palmer. Steve Jeffries. And so this week we're talking about, on this billionaires podcast, we've talked about a lot of different strategies for becoming a billionaire. That's right.

But I think this week we are finally discussing the most self-made way to become a billionaire and that is to marry a billionaire get them addicted to a cocktail of antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs so that they're in a fog and they don't understand what's going on okay then get them to sign a will that completely excludes all of their family and gives everything to you and then murder them yeah that was a chapter 8 of capital right so Eddie's capital you and then murder them. Yeah. That was chapter eight of Capital, right? Bacchetti's Capital. Yes.

And then do it again. Because this week we're talking about Lily Safra, who's a Brazilian billionaire. Forbes gives her a $1.3 billion net worth as of May 2019. Forbes does not give her a self-made score, however. Which I think is kind of bullshit. Come on, suck it to me. If you're going to have the 10 out of 10, what's the point? And also, how can you kill someone and not have a self-worth rating, you know? Yeah, you know, I guess she had to contract out the labor

for the actual murder. But it should be noted, Forbes... She didn't do the murder well here's the thing lily saffra has been married four times okay wait yes first let's do some housekeeping uh i want to do some housekeeping real quick you might have heard richard nixon asking us to sock it to him uh our listeners are torn on whether we should have more drops. That's right. And I think we need to resolve it now where we're going to have a vote on whether we should have, uh, more drops or less drops.

And the way you vote is you leave us a five star review on iTunes and you tell us whether you want more or less drops. We're only counting the five star ones. And, uh, you can get two votes if you subscribe to our Patreon, full $5 tier, and comment there. Three votes if you do both. Okay. And how many votes do they get if they do a tier above the $5 one?

Three. Okay. We're not going to let you pick which drops, though. No, of course not. You could vote more drops and then absolutely destroy this podcast. But this week, we are talking about Lily Safra. And what I was saying earlier is essentially this idea of how self-made are you? If you are a, let's say, gold digger but it's a pejorative term but

but let's use that term and let's say you marry a man for money and then you do the hard gives you money yes marry marry a person right yes thank you exactly thank you steve gender neutral gold yes but but that's like that's nothing that easy. It does take actual labor to stage that person's murder. After you have gotten them addicted to various drugs so that they sign a will when they have no idea what's going on that totally excludes their siblings,

their parents. These things are labor and that does make you a worker. So I will argue on this episode that Lily Safra is a worker. Well, no one considers, no one takes into account the mental load of

ordering hits. You know, planning out the hit. Calling the pharmacist. Yeah, that is really, like, the term gets thrown around a lot, but this is definitely emotional labor. Yeah, I mean, this is just basic shit to run a household where you plan to murder your spouse.

Nobody ever talks about the emotional labor of having to look into the faces of the children you have with the man you murdered and lie to them. Let alone the commitment to get married over four times. But so I should just explain this here. So Lily Safra has been over four times but so i should just explain this here so lily safra has been married four times her second and fourth husbands were both mysteriously murdered um and so the first and third got off scot-free yes uh and we'll kind of go through like the whole story with all those husbands but um it should be noted i mentioned forbes uh doesn't give her a self-made score however on the forbes website it notes that uh there is a conspiracy theory that's the quote

they use okay that uh lily safra murdered her fourth husband um edmund safra and i would just like to point out that forbes does not call it a conspiracy theory that lily safra murdered her second husband. And we'll kind of go through that and you know just kind of the mysterious circumstances of their deaths and Lily Saffra has litigated a fair bit on this issue. But you know Yogi

was googling Lily Saffra earlier and if you do that you just find a bunch of charity bullshit. Yeah she recently as of about an hour ago Forbes posted that she's donating 22 million to that uh french uh tragedy that is the uh obelisk of uh catholic uh priest rape the notre dame fire that's right and i thought it was ironic that the uh money that she got from lighting her husband on fire went to repairing the damage caused by another fire what was that was that husband uh

irish did she did she kill a fighting irish to restore notre dame no that would be poetic but uh safra is is not an irish last name fire fire wait she just cut the last name of the husband she killed the most recent husband so and you So, and, you know, she's... Oh. Obviously, she's been married four times. We live in a patriarchal society. She's been through four last names, but we're just gonna call her Lily Safra throughout this so that we're not bouncing back and forth from whatever her surname was at the time

of whichever marriage. Okay. So... Okay. What was her first name? What was she born? She was born Lily Watkins. Okay.

Mm-hmm. That's kind of Irish. Yes. Oh, wait, kind of Irish. Yes. Oh, wait, but Saffron. Never mind. But so I guess we could just kind of go through this chronologically then. The story, oh, and I should mention. So I read this book, Gilded Lily by Isabel Vincent.

And you were saying it's been banned in Brazil. Yeah. There was an article that says that this book was banned in Brazil. And essentially Lily Saffron used her political ties to make it so that you couldn't have access to this book that talks about what a piece of shit Lily Safra is in the country that she's currently residing in. Well, to be fair, we do this podcast about billionaires. There's 2,000 some in the world and you know we don't know when we'll finish but i i do think we should thank lily safra for making us have to do two fewer episodes before we'll be finished with all this she's a worker yeah she helps out yeah um and so you know so the book again gilded lily by isabelle vincent i do recommend it it's it's quite interesting um

and it goes through these two uh mysterious deaths but it just kind of tells the story. And Lily Saffer, her father was a guy named Wolf Watkins. Again, she's born Lily Watkins. And Wolf Watkins leaves London in the 1920s. He's a Jewish guy, Ashkenazi Jewish, leaves London to seek his fortune in South America. You know, he originally ends up in Uruguay, but then he moves to Brazil. He moves just outside of Rio de Janeiro. And it's interesting. Essentially, during World War II, Brazil is under a fascist dictatorship, the Vargas dictatorship. They've come so far. It's like the wire.

Everything comes full circle. So the Vargas dictatorship, he's a very interesting character um essentially he's like close to you know hitler and mussolini at the start of the war but then of course they get their asses kicked so he uh knows where the wind is blowing and and kisses up to you know the u.s and and uh and nato and all that um but but essentially during world war ii wolf watkins makes his fortune because brazil is uh doing gas rationing like fuel rationing the way a lot of um countries were during world war ii so he gets a guy wolf got wolf watkins lily uh lily safra's father meets a guy in the government and they strike up a basically a corrupt deal which is this guy in

the government is managing i guess the fuel supply for i think brazil's trains or something like that okay and so this guy uh oh yeah wolf watkins has like a rail carriage repair business so these trains will come uh these government trains will come there to be repaired but then they'll be loaded up with fuel which uh wolf like fuel barrels, which Wolf Watkins will sell on the black market and then split the profits. Gotcha. So essentially he strikes a deal with a Brazilian government guy to get around the rationing of fuel. And this makes him a fortune. I bet.

So, you know, he's... He's fucking stealing gas from... The Brazilian government, basically. Yeah. So where is the fuel going just more in is just moving around from station to station essentially it's it's being sold on the black market uh wolf watkins had like some black market connections from his like time in uruguay he was doing like various kind of like low smuggling stuff essentially right however

those black market oil trains were running on time um but so you know his daughter lily saffra is born 1934 um and she grows up in like relative luxury again you know he grows up rich because of this deal and um essentially she attends like a brit a british american school um i believe in rio uh so speaks, Lily Safra speaks Spanish, French, Portuguese, English. And she attends this school 1945 to 51. She's a real Buddha judge. And she's

teased about her nose a little bit while she's at the school. So she gets like an early nose job before her debutante premiere. Again, the importance of bullying. You really have to manage it. Wait, she got a nose job in like 54?

Yeah. Yes. In Brazil, yeah. That's a real like shot in the dark. Well, they were rich enough, think yeah in early 50s uh i think like 51 or 50 she was in the brazilian one percent yeah basically she was a one percent she's never not been in the brazilian one percent and that's that's the interesting thing so she attends this you know private english boarding school and um uh essentially she has like some boyfriends

early on but her parents really set her up to marry a rich guy like you know she falls in love with like kind of a middle class guy and her parents actually take her out of the country to get him away from this boy really they take her to like i think uruguay because essentially they know like some wealthier dude they can set her up with you know i just love the notion of like hey you can't love this poor fuck, so we're going to take you away from them. A real, real fucking family love right there. I also like that her conclusion was like, all right, well, I'm going to kill him. No, that's not the first one.

These are the boyfriends. These are early on. No, but the first marriage. They're like, okay, well, you're going to have to marry a rich guy. Talking the mic down. You're going to marry a rich guy. And she's like, okay, I'll be killing them. I won't.

I'll marry them, but they're going to die at my hand. Wolf Watkins never truly renounced his membership in the Brazil Communist Party. The picture is starting to, even now, is starting to become clear. Yeah, certainly. If you certainly if your folks we're gonna force you to marry someone you might start nose job uh scaring off the boyfriend right right forced marriage this is how you build a psychopath yeah but so they yeah they take her to uruguay on like a vacation like a long family vacation to get her out of Rio and away from this middle class boy. And it's there that she marries, in 1952,

she marries Mario Cohen. And this is like, he comes from a family manufacturing fortune in Brazil. They're plumbers? Yes. Jewish plumbers? How do you get plumbing, though? Mario. It's a me.

Automatically. Yeah, why not? It's a me. Cohen. Oh, no. These locks aren't cut too thin. It's a me. Mario.

My wife's nose. It's a me mario my wife's nose it's a perfect he he shot fireballs to kill her fourth husband but yes uh mario cohen is uh uh her husband uh 90 hosiery magnate. Yes. According to Wikipedia. What the fuck is hosiery? I assume it's like pantyhose. Yeah, yeah. He was a magnate of it. Do you know how embarrassing I am?

I have that in my note, but I didn't want to say it because I have no idea what it is. So I was like, if I just say he's a manufacturing fortune. Come on, Sean. And then I won't be mercilessly roasted by my co-hosts when I say he's a hosiery. I like that we've scared you into not saying things on the podcast at this point. I do avoid the words that I know I'm going to mispronounce now. We let you say Uruguay. You got away with that one. I'm going to see Lily's surgeon and get my fucking pronunciations changed.

Get the vocal cords done just right so that I pronounce every word correctly. But so she marries Mario Cohen, 1952. Their parents set them up. she's about 18 years old we mentioned yeah born 1934 uh married by 1952 to a pretty wealthy family in brazil and they start having children right away she has three children with him she has her first child 1953 um and so she uh again she grew up relative relatively well off. I would say, yeah, Brazilian 1%. So she has like this very expensive shopping habits. Like she spends thousands on lingerie to the point where I think he like got very angry

and tore some of them up in front of her. And they have these kinds of arguments early on, you know. But essentially they're like living in Uruguay and um lily finds it very boring she's a high society type she wants to go back to rio de janeiro where all these things are happening before you continue though no like spending too much money is a contentious thing in relationships but spending too much money on lingerie is only for the other person involved you know what i mean people don't get lingerie and go i'm wearing this for the beach You know what I mean? People don't get lingerie and go, I'm wearing this for the beach. You know what I mean? So there's got to be something more to this

fucking lingerie nonsense. I'm telling you. Her husband ripped it up by putting it on his head and then eating a mushroom so he became giant. Man, I shouldn't have made that Mario joke. It's made our podcast 80% stupider. He opposes changing it

to Indigenous Peoples Day. Oh no, Mussolini has been overthrown. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. All right. Well, anyways. uh can't be a genocide uh because the indigenous people weren't a real civilization yeah um so uh uh fucking uh mario cohen oh yeah so lily's bored she's in uruguay with this kind that was solid so fucking Mario Cohen oh yeah so Lily's bored she's in Uruguay with this kind of boring guy in a boring city Rio's the real party

scene she wants to come back she's got three kids she's bored her father dies 1962 and that's when she really wants to return to Rio so what she does is she leaves her husband Mario Cohen for Alfredo Monteverde. And yes, Alfredo Monteverde is the founder of a Brazilian company called Ponto Frio, which is something cold.

Basically, they made their fortune mainly selling refrigerators to the Brazilian. Oh, not cheese? Yes. Ponto Frio. Yeah, Yogi, it per it perishes oh that makes sense yeah you gotta put the cheese somewhere have you have you left alfredo sauce out in the hot brazilian sun well this is how this is how lily eventually murders her husband this is how it happens anyways the point here um is that uh uh lily safra um uh she leaves well she starts an affair so she's married to this first guy 1952 uh but

she like you know what's she gonna do if she leaves him she doesn't really you know she doesn't want to be a divorcee it's's kind of taboo in those days. She doesn't have any money. So she meets this guy, Alfredo Monteverde, who's even richer than her first husband. Yeah, he's got a sexy name. Which is the way to do it. She meets this guy, even richer than her first husband. So she's married in 1952, first husband. By 1964, she started an affair with yourself

with who will be her second husband uh they're dating in 1964 and uh they're married by 1965 um yeah so if she had an affair to start that relationship i'm assured that that lingerie tearing up shit must have been some you were looking at that you know uruguay pool boy too much you know i mean like there's gotta been some sort of like um mario being mad at some some jealousy type of listen here you nasty bitch all right i'ma put on my raccoon hat and stomp the shit out of you. I'ma smash you like a fucking brick. Yeah, Lily Saffra's original last name was Peach.

Mario's drunk later. Princess, are you there? I've been calling. I know we are separated, but I made a mistake. Why are you in another castle? I'm gonna feed you to Yoshi. They'll never find your remains.

He signs the divorce papers. Dun, dun, dun, dun. they'll never find your remains he signs the divorce papers Luigi we're going to the strip club bitches man but regardless I'm gonna hang myself while I'm editing this I do like that if i if i fuck up enough and riffing i can make it andy's job to edit the episode are you gonna add more riffs in post okay so i'm gonna edit like half of it and then i'm gonna send that off while i hang myself so that you guys still have something to work with um but so mario cohen and then I'm going to send that off while I hang myself so that you guys still have something to work with.

But so Mario Cohen, he leaves, or no, he gets left. He gets cucked, basically. But Alfredo Monteverde is a pretty fascinating character. Essentially, his family flees Romania. they're like a jewish family i believe ashkenazi uh they flee romania shortly before you know the invasion and the war and all that but they were a rich family in romania so what they do is they have like stashes of gold bars that they're able to take out of the country uh then they end up in england but like during the war england like freezes the gold but then after war, they're able to get the gold.

So they have this, you know... They found a way to thaw it. They have this fortune of gold, and so they move to Brazil. I mean, they wanted to go to the United States. The United States wouldn't let them in, so they go to Brazil. They're in Brazil. After the war, they have these gold bars. And so Alfredo comes up with the idea of doing essentially like import export and primarily what he uses the gold he makes his fortune on refrigerators uh like he uses the gold bars

to buy refrigerators from the united states then sell them to brazil's middle class lower class particularly on credit like he makes a lot of money extending credit to poorer people who just didn't have refrigerators. It's like a car manufacturer. Yeah, there you go. He makes a good fortune doing this. Then it's the company's Ponto Frio.

Their mascot is a penguin which washed up on a Brazilian beach at the time and then died two days later. What? Then he had it stuffed. And that was their mascot. I think it would be fun for their Ponto Frio mascot.

They made it like this kind of schlubby penguin that's riding on a donkey. All right. So Ponto Frio is how he makes his makes his fortune and again he makes a good fortune primarily on the refrigerators thing but also there's like allegations that he's doing like gold smuggling because important thing happens 1964 uh there's a military coup in brazil and then they're run by a military dictatorship until the mid 80s lots of corruption but uh they're very strict on currency controls,

so the elite need a way to get their money out of the country. So he apparently also makes some money, you know, like helping them with the gold smuggling and all this shit. But regardless, he's one of the richest men in Brazil, and he takes Mario Cohen's wife,

or Lily leaves her husband Mario for Alfredo Monteverde. So Lily becomes a gold digger to a guy that was an actual gold smuggler. Yes. Wow. Wow. Sounds like she doesn't have to dig. It was there all along.

It's already out of the ground. Just laying around. But so Lily Safra leaves Mario Cohen for Alfredo Monteverde, and the marriage is good at first. He sets her up in a boutique store in Rio. She's excited because they get to go back to Rio. The store is called Galafi. And it sells imported jewelry.

But it's basically like he's extremely rich. Lily's bored. So she needs something to do. It's like why is any business in williamsburg open right right because somebody extremely profitable everyone wants to buy uh a 1940s pilot jacket for five thousand dollars no listen i need a 1930s uh vera wong uh scarf only if it's 40 grand that's what i need today yeah the rent here is 15 000 a day but uh we sold three jackets last month so i think we're actually just about to uh become profitable and what sean's mentioning the store

that she's running a lot of her um prowess today as a philanthropist is loaning out her extensive jewelry collection to museums and stuff and so i think this is where her collection begins essentially yeah and so it's interesting like just another thing about alfredo is like most people in the book uh like his former employees say he was very good to them and uh you know he extended people credit and gave people a lot of money but he was a manic depressive so that's an interesting part of the story where he'll go through these manic episodes of him to give people credit uh he'll go through these manic episodes where he's like you know hey let's let's open a giant thing here and oh i don't care how much it

costs and then his accountants will have to like walk it back later he's like everybody gets debt and then like a few weeks later he's like i don't think anyone should get debt um you know and of course he's like um a mate one of the richest people in brazil he has to kind of play footsie with the military dictatorship even though his what like at least people who knew him say his sympathies were with the poor, but he's also worth 300 million, so. Oh, yeah, definitely. No, that guy's the most sympathetic to the poor. But so Alfredo, basically, oh, another interesting thing,

he used to drive around in an ambulance, which is a trick that they still do in Italy. Like, he gets an ambulance, and because he wants to, like, have a short commute, he'll just have them turn the lights on so people... And I heard, like, what happened in Italy is people were dying in ambulances because every Italian driver

got so cynical to politicians doing that shit, they just wouldn't pull over for ambulances. What a fucking chooch. But, um, so that was his little trick. Very sympathetic to the poor, this man.

Loves them. But so, they're married 65, and it's important to note, according to his family and some friends, in 1966, he's in the middle of a depressive episode. He's on a very strong cocktail of medication, kind of on and off throughout most of his life. But he's in a heavily medicated state in a depressive episode, 1966,

where he signs a will that excludes, for the most part, his mother and his sister, among others. And that's significant because, you know, we mentioned those gold bars. Well, it was the entire family's wealth. So the startup capital came from him, his mother, and and his sister who took all these gold bars out of romania so and it's also very uncharacteristic because he loved his he was closest to his sister closer than anyone else in the world very close to his mother so he signs this will where essentially lily safra gets everything in 1966 and then then it's kind of interesting because they keep on with their marriage,

but sometime in 1969, he gets tired of her and wants to divorce her. So Alfredo wants to divorce Lily Safra and he starts telling people, I'm going to divorce her. You know, like lots of business associates and other friends know that the divorce is coming. And then he is mysteriously

shot wow and so the actual circumstances of that are he comes home uh from a work nap uh in 1969 did you say a work nap well he's working he goes to the office in the morning he comes home from lunch for lunch to take a nap okay gotcha so he comes back to his like mansion house 1969 he comes home to take a nap and uh essentially uh what happens is that uh he is shot twice while he is taking a nap and this is declared a suicide which uh well you know what's really suspicious is uh there's an ambulance right there. Did not come to his aid. How did they know he was napping? Yeah. And so it's just like... That's a great question.

How did they know he was napping? Was he found dead on a couch or something? He took off his shoes. He laid down on his bed to take a nap, probably. That's exactly how I would kill my husband. He did. He did some heroin. Wait till he takes his midday nap.

Yep. He wrote a letter about how he just doesn't find satisfaction from writing music anymore. He put on an REM record, did another bump of heroin, and then a shotgun in the old mouth. And the electrician found him three days later. Do they know what weapon it was? It was Courtney Love's shotgun. So it was a revolver. It's kind of a weird story with this revolver.

Apparently they kept this revolver in the house for protection, but nobody could ever identify who actually owned the thing. So whoever killed him knew there was a revolver in the house and got that revolver. And I mean, mean look the thing is also he's a manic depressive so the suicide story kind of fits well enough but there's a bunch of fits up to the first shot right right right there's a bunch of weird details um and uh so an interesting thing is that lily's brother uh artigans uh lily has few brothers. I'm not sure if it's two or three,

but one of her brothers just happened to work as a security guard for the company, and all of Lily's family's expenses were being taken care of by the company, Ponto Frio. And he worked as a security guard, and he just happened to be at the house at the time of the murder. Lily's brother was

at the house at the time of the murder, but then once the body was found, for some reason, he was not there anymore oh isn't that interesting so it is just kind of like one of those funny little stories um and so basically you have to go get a snack uh he uh shoots self twice in the chest a coroner actually looks at this finds that he has no traces of gunpowder on his hands in the autopsy, which you would expect to be there if you shot yourself. He also said that based on the angle, he would have had to have shot himself with his left hand. However, he was right handed. So there's a ton of little suspicious things.

I'll tell you exactly how this happened. Lily Safra wore some nice lingerie, brought in her husband, told her to take off his shoes, put him on the bed, started to get all frisky, and then bang, bang in the chest. And listen, why is the brother gone? Because the brother doesn't want to hear Lily Safra banging her husband at this time. You know what I mean?

So he hears them fucking and goes, I gotta get the fuck out of here. And then shot to the chest. And then Chekhov's gun's gone. I'm hearing anti-capitalist direct action. Using the gun that no one owns. You know what? I bet it was. He thought, you know what?

If I'm going to do this, everyone does it with their dominant hand. I'm going to go goofy. Yeah. This is the last thing I ever do. I'm just going to make it interesting for know what this is the last thing I ever do so I'm just gonna make it interesting for them yeah and then he was like

and then he fucked it up the first time because he was doing it with his left hand and he's like fuck I gotta shoot again I just love when suicide is like a mystery

you know what I mean like it's like well they killed themselves but they did it in a way that was kind of like untraditional yeah and so it's an interesting thing where essentially he's found dead by the housekeeper and his adopted son at 3 p.m.,

but it is 9.45 p.m. before the police are alerted. And so, like, this is, according to the book, the chief counsel, the chief lawyer of the company, is the one who reports it to the police, and they speculate that he might have been calculating that essentially Lily is going to take over the company and the fortune because of the aforementioned will. So a lot of Ponto Frio employees start kind of taking their orders from Lily because they recognize, oh, this is the person who controls all the money now.

We should probably like, you know, fall in line with what she wants. And another interesting thing that happens there, according to the book, there was alleged about $80,000. What does that have to do with them calling the police six hours after he shot? Essentially, they wanted to get all their story together and like kind of manage the scene before the police come in and start investigating and taking pictures. Because all the employees know that Lily Safran now will run the show instead of going, hey, what's the cop, you know, instead of trying to get them both, they still want their jobs. And if like Lily Safra gets away

with this, then they're all shit out of luck when it comes to working. Are they all in his house? What? Well, essentially like Hey, everyone, come over. We're napping. But like the housekeeper, the people that work for us on the estate and stuff. Lily is called over. Those employees, right? When you for us, all the employees. Lily is called over. Those employees, right.

When you're rich, you have employees in your house. But yeah, so Lily's kind of called over and she takes charge of the scene. And essentially, according to the book, Gilded Lily, there were allegedly about 80. I just got it. Allegedly about $80,000 worth of payments were made uh to police and investigators and uh other such people for a job well done but you know you don't tip your cop but so essentially the detectives rule that this is a suicide and uh various lawsuits are launched to try and get this overturned but again this

is the brazilian military dictatorship where essentially the court system worked. Whoever has the most money wins. Lily Safra gets access to the fortune. And this is all just kind of like, hey, it was a suicide. Let's not look at it too hard, even though we mentioned, you know, the coroner and some other kind of very strange things. You want to know what my bet is? After she had her divorce she was like this is way too much paperwork if i want to start fucking other dudes i need to figure out another route

yeah yeah yeah there's this unidentified gun at this house how do i use that in my new way of leaving my current husband but yeah and you know it is just kind of interesting where it's like had he been able to divorce her like i'm sure he would have given her something but the family was clearly by this point accustomed to having all of their expenses paid for by this massively successful company so they get the whole enchilada as long as he's bumped off you know i don't think she would have gotten something i think think that if this murder from Lily Safra is, you know, allegedly unconfirmed confirmed, I think that Lily Safra could see that if he's going to divorce me, I'm not going to get shit. I mean, think about this.

This is what, 1960 something, right, Sean? 69, yeah. So a rich dude in 1960 ain't giving his ex-wife shit. I mean, like, especially with Brazilian court laws. No, that's not happening well apparently he like had a series of girlfriends and he usually took care of them but i'm just not sure if he would have done it to the extent that he was worth according to the book about 300 million dollars wow so all of that goes to lily safra and it's interesting like um uh

essentially the other thing is uh she adopts his adopted son, Carlos. Like he was sterile, but he adopted a son. Under Brazilian law at the time, a child got half of the inheritance. Oh, sure. So she adopts him and then immediately he's nine years old. She gets his inheritance as well. So she really set it up quite well to essentially just take this entire fortune and put it in her own hands.

Right, right. And if you just want to hear some psychopath shit uh she throws a festive reception at their mansion um to you know honor the memory of uh of her late husband right uh she invites his sister uh but as she gets there and it's mostly like lily's friends and they all seem to be partying and having a good time. And then she says, Lily tells his sister, all the rooms are full, but I made up the bed where he was murdered in, and you could sleep there. I imagine right after she says that,

she hands the sister a champagne flute and then locks eyes with her and starts pouring champagne until it starts overflowing into the cup. But she stays in a hotel instead. Yeah, what a fucking psychopath. And so it's all pretty fascinating. But just kind of going on from here, less than a month after his death, Lily sells the house and moves to London. And London's significant because Edmund Safra will become her fourth husband. And Edmund Safra was...

Fourth. Well, we'll get to the third. But Edmund Safra was a major banker. He's from the Safra banking clan, which is like a Jewish banking clan. Originally in Syria. Okay, Sean. Yes. No, they really exist. I swear're gonna talk all right okay come on

sean let's be honest here don't be so so biased man come on you gotta grow out of this buddy fucking say that and then like the daily stormer is in our recommended podcast list next episode anyways if you guys like listening to Audible, they've got this great book, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Really, really interesting stuff about

some of the figures in this story. Wait, does Lily only marry Jews? Yes. Enter Grubstakers at checkout. Audible, why are you canceling our sponsorship deal? We know that books are the key foundation of knowledge, and we were trying to teach our listeners more knowledge. That's right.

Your brand can only be enhanced by being associated with the truth. Teach the controversy. They realize that it's Sean who's been emailing them an MP3 file of himself reading the protocols. They block my email and then I think that's them canceling the sponsorship deal. But yeah, so Edmund Safra, his family legacy, it goes back to, like, I believe the 19th century in Syria. And essentially, they're, like, the bankers originally in Aleppo. Then they set up a branch in Beirut. What's that?

Aleppo. What? Then they set up a branch in Beirut, and they moved to Brazil after the war. And it's interesting where, you know, we mentioned the military dictatorship. They get this reputation for discretion. Like Edmund Safra, he takes the family fortune, and he really makes his own by setting up a bank in Geneva in 1983, I believe. And essentially, the entire idea is, you know, discretion, silence.

Like, they really kind of take care of the money for the elite in Brazil in the military dictatorship. They, like, they won't send any mailings or any letters. If you call their office, they'll just say hello, and they won't identify their office, you know. Really? Because you can get arrested if you're sneaking money offshore. So he sets up this kind of place for the wealthy to launder and hide their money,

and he's involved in some other shady stuff. But that's kind of like this. He really makes his money in the 80s as a Swiss banker. Or no, sorry. He sets it up in the 1960s as a um a swiss banker or no sorry he sets it up in uh the 1960s or no 56 yes in 1956 uh edmund saffra sets up the trade development bank in um in geneva switzerland there are two main industries i think uh banking and army knives and uh and uh taking the gold from the families unlike Alfredo, that were not able to get away. Using army knives. Vertical integration.

But so this Edmund Safra is significant because Edmund Safra was Alfredo's banker. So she starts, so there's no way of proving. This Edmund Safra is significant because Edmund Safra was Alfredo's banker. So she starts, so there's no way of proving. I'm going to remove the army knife attachment that takes out teeth. The Grubstickers podcast does not represent the views of all the Grubstickers hosts on this podcast. Yeah, I feel bad for whichever one of us tries to go mainstream after this podcast fails it's gonna be me i'm telling you it's gonna be me i promise it i'm sorry for getting you canceled in 10 years i'm gonna point them to this episode where i'm gonna let them know i stand by everything we said only because idiocy is the only truth to power in stupidity.

But so regardless, it's interesting where there's no way of proving this, but Edmund Safra is Alfredo's banker, and people believe they started an affair before his murder or suicide. They believe that, and the evidence is kind of convincing in that i mean it's circumstantial but essentially what happens all suicidal kind of murder good point andy folks if you're feeling suicidal make sure to check out audible promo code the protocols protocols 1915 um but so the point was essentially uh the circumstantial evidence that's kind of convincing is that immediately after alfredo dies um some very complicated financial engineering goes on that did they leave him out in the sun? Go on. Some very complicated financial engineering occurs

that secures Lily's stake in the fortune. Essentially, like, within five days of his death, his mother has been removed of power of attorney over his accounts. Really? Within five days of his death. Within 30 days, Lily is in London, where Edmund is.

He goes back and forth from there in Geneva and um and Brazil um but so and you know these other kind of things where it's like again this is a 300 million dollar fortune at the time which would be like billions probably today and so it's a very complicated country company a lot of moving parts Lily's probably had no experience running this thing however she's able to to get the money quickly offshore into Switzerland accounts and have it all very firmly under her control within a month, essentially.

So it's believed that because Edmund Safra was his banker, she was able to shack up with him and then be like, Edmund, can you take care of all this financial shit? And then Edmund does. And in fact, later on, Edmund's kind of controlling the money and lily's for a period at least he has a lot of power over her because he essentially is now controlling uh her ex-husband's fortune yeah and let's be honest

lily safra eats that butt i mean come on She can't be spending all these money games with these boys without a couple of ass plays going on downtown. Oh, yeah, she's totally a freak. Come on, let's be honest here. And so the story with Edmund Safra is... You can't dig gold without digging butt. Burn gold. Is there a tool on the Swiss Army knife for that?

Oh yeah It's to clean your teeth afterwards Why is my shit worse than the anti-semitic shit, huh? How come eating bun is somehow more dirty Than insulting an entire race of human beings. Lily's like, Alfredo, do you like to have your ass eaten? He's like, of course. How do you think I got that gold out of Romania?

But yes, so Edmund Safra, we mentioned he founds this trade development bank in Geneva, Switzerland, 1956. He sets up Republic National Bank in New York in 1966. Robert Kennedy is actually there at the ribbon cutting. Oh, really? I wonder what he's doing there. Thinking, I'm going to live forever thinking i should uh i should talk

about social democracy and oppose the vietnam war and uh i don't really think the central intelligence agency would have any problem with me doing that uh but yeah i think he was uh looking He was looking at, what was it, Safra? Yeah. Yeah, and he was like, oh man, this loser's gonna get killed. Everyone in that family gets fucking killed. But so Edmund Safra, he sells actually his Swiss bank to American Express in 1983 for about half a billion dollars, a little more than that.

And then he kind of gets pushed out there and there's actually like they kind of slander him in the press and this kind of stuff. Just kind of like, you know, business dispute kind of stuff. But it's interesting. Oh, and I mentioned so Alfredo's sister and his mother, they do sue Edmund and Lily in British court because they realize that the Brazilian court's going to give them nothing. Sure. And basically, they have to settle out of court. So they do settle out of court for undisclosed terms. But they win.

They get the money. Eventually, this is all cleared. Dollar, dollar, billion. But so an interesting thing happens where Edmund Safra, he's from a Sephardic Jewish community, whereas Lily Safra is Ashkenazi Jewish. So his family is very conservative in that they only want him to marry a Sephardic Jew. They don't want mixing of the tribes. Exactly. So Lily Safra, her next plan is essentially she starts another affair in order to make her husband jealous.

In 1971, she meets a guy in a dentist's office, Samuel Bendahan, who's another businessman. And so she separates from Edmund briefly because Edmund doesn't want to get married. She shacks up and marries this guy after six weeks. But then she leaves him because Edmund gets jealous and is like, OK, fine, I'll marry you now that you shacked up with another guy. So she marries him for six weeks, leaves him. And then Edmund is actually so embittered about this that they convince him to fly to new york this is lily's third husband they convince him to fly to new york to negotiate the terms of his um of the divorce right as soon as he gets to new york he is arrested and uh spends a night in

rikers island uh where he's uh shares a a bed a room i should say with a self-proclaimed murderer and sees a guy throw himself off the top floor of this holding cell after just a night in Rikers and then he post bail the next day but this is basically they have him arrested on trumped up extortion charges saying he's like trying to get money during the divorce negotiations and this like winds its way through the New York appeals court and then they throw out the case but it was essentially just Edmund Saffer had money, so he got the guy who cucked him thrown in Rikers Island.

Yeah, right, right. Well, I'll say this. He's the one husband whose ass was not eaten. I know that for a fact. Maybe at Rikers, but not before then. Yeah. But so Lily finally met... You think he got out of Rikers,

and then a few years later he was like, thank God. Sean, do you know what happens to that guy later on does he just exist in the world and is happy that this time with Saffra is over he's interviewed for this book Gilded Lily and he says that he settles with her for a pittance he hasn't remarried since

he thinks his life is the pittance I understand why he wouldn't marry again. He got married once after six weeks and it was the worst decision of his fucking life. So he's mad. And knowing that he got off easy. Right, right.

He wasn't killed. Hashtag close Rikers. That's true. You know, actually later we did a bit where, I think I wrote it or one of you guys wrote it, but it was like on where they're going to rent out Rikers Island for like apartments in the future. And I think that will happen. I like I know there was a dumb bit we did for a podcast no one listened to and you can cut this, Andy.

But like, I'm pretty sure at one point they're going to advertise Rikers as like a destination place to live. Because you got to think of the real estate in New York. Yeah, I mean, a museum could be... But I think that there's... They want to make it a solar power plant. I think they're going to go the route of you can live here and experience the life of prisoners once lived.

It'll be like a escape room slash historical visit type of thing. You know what I mean? Now I'm just imagining fucking hipsters paying $30 for like bread with a spoonful of gravy put on top of it. White bread with gravy. For $60 the police will beat you. It's an experience not being able to post bail.

Dude, I'm telling you, there's this place in LA and they're calling themselves prison with a Z, I think. And it's like a place in like Koreatown and it's just a place that looks like a prison and they're just serving fucking, you know, French fries with gravy and fucking an egg on top. Like it's just basic bullshit hipster food. But the theme is it's a prison. And I'm telling you, man, the way that the current society is going is it's going into the deeper and darker aspects of society and normalizing it for mainstream fucking capital. It's horrendous, but I'm telling you, in about 10 to 15 years,

we'll see you can rent a room at Rikers for eight grand, and motherfuckers will line up for that shit. But what about the Mass Grave Island that's near Rikers? How much do you think? They'll be in Airbnb. The restaurant is a Korean prison-themed restaurant, so if you talk to any of your dinner guests, they'll break your thumbs.

I have thought about going to that restaurant with just an orange jumpsuit and just fucking stabbing everyone. Just fucking go in straight prison. What? I thought it was prison rules. What the fuck? You go on Yelp. They're like, look, when you get in the restaurant,

you have to establish your dominance and attack the largest patron you see. It's going to be a Japanese maid restaurant. You guys don't know what that is, do you? I don't know what that is, no. They have Japanese maid restaurants where you get served by people dressed as maids. Oh, really? There's also other ones where it's men and they're dressed as butlers.

Oh, I had you there. So I just had a funny idea of that. Right, right, right. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, I'll have the chicken Alfredo. where it's men and they're dressed as butlers oh oh i just had a funny idea of yeah right right yeah i see what you're saying yeah i'll have the chicken alfredo and uh for dessert could i get jumped into the aryan brotherhood uh so lily safra's third husband samuel bandahan uh she gets rid of him after six weeks he has to spend a long time fighting this frivolous extortion lawsuit but eventually he wins but he's like uh kind of financially devastated i mean he's doing okay but you know he's not a multi-millionaire uh or maybe he is he's not a multi multi multi-millionaire but he's

uh kind of embittered towards edmund safra understandably but he's like still has feelings for lily and he agreed to cooperate with this book essentially because lily was like a high society person and she would bring him around during these like six weeks of marriage and while they were dating and everybody referred to him as like lily's gigolo and stuff because he was like a 30s early 30s handsome looking guy you know so they were like oh lily's just using this spry young man to make edmund jealous you know and he says that they were like passionately in love and they exchanged all these letters he was he was doing some gold digging back yeah yeah he was but i think we can all agree that regardless of this uh fourth uh suicide murder thing lily safra master manipulator of

of human beings and um and that's that fucking if you want to know why a person like that becomes a master manipulator like steven, the bullying in the private school, but that type of environment fucking breeds this type of humanity. It makes you want to murder and kill your way to the top for societal status more than anything else. So those bullies, they have a lot of power. But with great power comes great responsibility. Thank you, Uncle Ben.

Yeah, I don't want to be a sex... Also, I bet Ben DeHaan eats pussy like a champ. Not well enough to keep himself out of Rikers Island. Like, if he was really putting it down, you'd think she would have put in a word or something. I mean, he might have been, Sean. You don't know. He could have been thrown down. he was just a pawn all right so uh samuel bandahan his uh her third husband is is out of the picture she's finally married with edmund you know his family

edmund's family very much disapproves again they're very conservative they don't want him marrying outside of the sephardic jewish community, you know, he's so in love with Lily and they have like a wonderful life together. And it's interesting where essentially like he already had this banking fortune and with Lily's dead husband's company, they become one of the dominant players in Brazil. And, you know, they're billionaires at this point.

And it's just important to note that essentially Ponto Frio put ads in basically every major Brazilian newspaper and TV station to the point where they could just have a company person call up any newspaper and be like, hey, don't run this story or we won't advertise with you. And you don't even have to pay them. They just won't say it. So they have a very dominant stranglehold on the Brazilian media

and all this kind of stuff. And you can just kind of go up through. If you want, you can look at kind of some of the shitty things Edmund Zafra did. Like they set up some, they built some synagogue in New York. He had a mansion in New York for his New York bank, and they did like some. And that's it.

They did like some, they tried to build a synagogue for the Sephardic Jewish community, and then they did the. It turns out it was a synagogue for the Sephardic Jewish community. And then they did the- It turns out it was a synagogue for the Ashkenazi Jewish community. Apparently it's mostly used by them. And they're like, you got punked. But they do the Trump thing where they have the contractor start building the thing and then they stiff him on the payments. And then it's like, hey, you're rich. We're rich.

Sue us. You can't because you're going to run out of money. Nice. So they do that kind of stuff. And they also, he buys up a mobbed up bank called Lafayette Bank Brooklyn in 1971. And, you know, just kind of this stuff. He's also linked to a financier named Willard Zucker who set up these shell companies used for the Iran-Contra scandal. Oh, really?

So, you know, so he has like a lot of those kinds of connections. And then, you know, life kind of goes on. Edmund, oh, Lily Safra's son Claudio from her first marriage dies in a car accident in 1989. So that affects her a fair bit. And from 1970...

Why was she not like 100 in the well uh from 1978 onwards um uh basically an israeli firm in geneva that was staffed by ex-masad was providing security for edmund safra because we mentioned you know he kind of has some shady dealings so he is very paranoid about security, which will come in just a second here. And so he's very paranoid about security. He has all these Mossad agents as his security guards and, and all this kind of stuff. And what happens is in the early nineties,

he's diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Edmund Safra is, but him and Lily in 1996 move into an apartment in Monaco near the border with France. And this is essentially where things kind of things kind of fall apart for the family. Because it's interesting. So he has Parkinson's. He's kind of degenerating, which is why it's like if she did kill him, I don't know. But it's like he was going to be dead soon anyway.

Sure, sure. But again, the circumstances are kind of weird. But so 1996, they moved to this monaco apartment and then they hire a nurse who's an american a former green beret named ted marr uh and uh the circumstances of his death are basically this edmund safra uh and december 3rd 1999 they're in this monaco apartment and um uh edmund safra is there and we mentioned he needs this 24 hour nursing staff because he needs them to go to the bathroom. He gets vertigo because

of the Parkinson's. Oh and we should mention a few years before his murder he signs a similar will to Lily's second husband which basically cuts out his Safra brothers and all these other people and gives everything to Lily Safra. And he's taking all these medications for Parkinson's so he's kind of in a fog here.

And he's, of course, degenerating. But he needs these nurses 24 hours, so they're in this Monaco apartment, December 3rd, 1999. Their new nurse, the American former Green Beret, apparently shows up, and he has a stab wound. And he tells Edmund and his other nurse, who's there, there are two masked intruders in the apartment.

Hide, I'm going to get help. So Edmund and this other nurse go to the bathroom and lock themselves in the bathroom. It's like a fortress apartment, so it's very hard to get in. The undoing is it's also hard to get out of. Right, right. And then the story's very weird

because Ted Marrr this other nurse claims he didn't know how to alert help so he sets a fire and uh this fire is supposed to alert the authorities and you know get help on the way and um it does but uh monaco is like so quiet that essentially the police and firefighters show up and they hear that there's like a massed gunman in there and they're like yeah we're not going in and then um and then the other thing happens where like um uh edmund's uh security chief rushes to the scene and the police arrest and detain him because we mentioned he has these 12 massad officers who are former massad who are like his security people so one of them rushes the scene he gets detained he's not allowed to go inside um one of edmund's butlers apparently had a key because they're in this bathroom that's like

a safe you know uh what do you call it a panic room sure sure so they can't the firefighters couldn't even get in if they were in there um but so he has a key this butler and they just ignore him and they don't let him go in you know and so essentially just like this fire is started and then they just like wait around outside for like two hours and then eventually this uh the nurse and edmund die of carbon monoxide poisoning uh after this fire is set and they wait in the bathroom and smoke comes in and they can't die of carbon monoxide poisoning and that's the end of edmund Safra, essentially. But the beginning of Lily Safra's reign. And so it's just kind of like a very weird thing where essentially the important things to know

is that Lily took the keys to the apartment away from all the employees shortly before the tragedy. What? And the other thing thing we mentioned these massad operatives there was no guard on duty that night which is like again they hired 11 or 12 massad ex-massad as like full-time security staff none of them were on duty that night and this thing says that he felt so safe in monaco he didn't have uh on duty at night. Eleven agents.

You can't have one each night. I mean, come on. When are they going to sleep? It's a union issue. Yeah, they're on strike. They were all busy planning the September 11th attacks. Look, we had two contracts going at once but yes and then the other thing is that like you know you know what they were doing in the evening messing with the zohan

the surveillance tapes from that night have mysteriously disappeared so essentially like this nurse we mentioned ted marr eventually what he tells police is the, the detective interviews him in a hospital bed and he doesn't believe that he was stabbed. And eventually Ted Marr admits that he stabbed himself and set the fire to, um, essentially be the hero and kind of like, uh, take over,

um, you know, uh, Edmund's staff duties and become number one. And this is kind of the story they stick with. And then, um, you know, evermund's staff duties and become number one. And this is kind of the story they stick with. And then, you know, ever since then, since then Ted Mars got out of prison and said he was like a patsy or was set up and stuff,

but he's kind of contradicted himself a lot. So people don't really understandably. Yes. And, you know, he said that, you know, there were like masked men and when he went to Nice, France, and they like showed him pictures of his family and told him how to get to nice france it's uh near the border oh they're oh wait right after he stabbed himself no uh before before this all goes down okay he says he was there though he later breaks out of prison but that's not really relevant okay yeah

that's what i saw that is that he broke out of prison and went okay we apprehended his niece all i'm learning is that like the barry and honey sherman case a billionaire is killed and fucking people can't figure it out even though there's fucking guards uh videotape that's disappearing and fucking a whole slew of information that's just magically gone for no real reason and it's it's interesting where essentially what happens is like you know uh i don't i don't know i don't think lily killed this the edmund i think she killed her second husband for sure uh but um but it's also something where essentially the monaco police solved the thing and then it's such an exclusive place for rich people that it is much more convenient for them to just say, hey, this was a freak accident instead of, hey, this was a murder. Right, right.

So they don't want to look back at this. And the other thing is like Edmund was partly very paranoid at this point in his life because he thought the Russians were going to kill him because he testified in some money laundering case against them. What an idiot. And, you know, he had a lot of enemies. So in the event that, you know, Ted Maher didn't act alone or there was actually masked people in the apartment that night, we don't know. Because like I said, the security cameras are gone. Right. But it's like the Monaco police have every incentive to just kind of stick with the story that we've essentially just told you here. So we don't know.

But it is interesting. In 2005, a novel called empress bianca is published uh this is from like some english high society woman who wrote a book about princess diana and it's like a very uh clear uh fictionalization of lily safro where essentially she just changes her from like brazil brazilian to peruvian sure sure changes her husband sure. Changes her husband from, like, Lebanese to fucking Iraqi or whatever the case. Changes to Alfredo de Pesto, yeah. And so this novel,

it's released in 2005, and it tells the story of a woman who murdered her second and fourth husband to steal their fortune. And it's interesting where, like, essentially, as soon as it's published, Lily immediately sues over this book. But Lily's, according to

Gilded Lily, Lily's society friends snap up all copies of the book before it's banned. Wow. Or snap a bunch of copies. Yeah, yeah. And they share them among their high society peers and apparently one went to Nancy Reagan. Because they all move in these same social circles

and they, you know, they love gossip. And who doesn't? But so this book, the publisher... Somewhere there's an astrologer with a copy of that book. Well, they need someone to read before the eyes wide shut parties. The publisher of that book agrees to pulp it. So they destroy all copies, but there are still some on like eBay for like a thousand. Oh, actually, no. Later she sues and is able to release in the United States.

But libel laws are easier in the United kingdom so it's a problem there and for all of our patreon listeners once you know if we get enough money we're gonna buy a copy of one of those books off of ebay with the patreon dollars you donate to us um and just other random things before we close out here uh so edmund before he died was on a cocktail that included Xanax, Clozaril, Depakote, Samir. Andy, do you know any of these drugs? I don't think I'm on any of them currently.

Why do we always use multiple drugs as calling them cocktails? At a certain point, a cocktail is not six pharmaceuticals. You know what I mean? You don't mix them together in a highball glass of vodka? Not usually. Oh, I was just going to say, because Lily killed one of the nurses,

she actually did miss out on the silent assassin rating when she killed her husband. Because you actually have to complete the level without any civilian casualties. That's right. So it is important. because you actually have to complete the level without any civilian casualties. That's right. That's right. So it is important. Maybe on her fifth marriage, she can get the elusive. I didn't know what that nurse was up to. Is she a big fan of Hitman?

Yeah, she can start her next. She can start her sixth marriage in the tuxedo outfit, which you unlock by doing silent assess. But yeah, and just like other weird stuff hsbc uh buys edmunds um fucking uh new york bank they buy it for like 9.85 billion and they buy it shortly before her death before his death so lily inherits all of this money uh maybe she pressured him to sell it um and also his bank uh his new york bank to the republic national bank uh two of their executives were involved in running a one billion dollar ponzi scheme on japanese investors so it's like you know you could you could if you want you could go through and kind of find all the the

various shady deals that they were involved in but i think the guy was a kind of a piece of shit so i don't don't particularly miss him he also he disowned he adopted her second you know they adopted his second uh her second husband's son carlos partly in order to secure the will but edmund kind of raised him as his own and then disowned him when uh he married a muslim woman wow so you know i mean he's so i think we think we can close by making the argument that Lilly is a worker and has made a direct impact against capitalism. Three cheers for Lilly.

And, you know, the nurse who lit the fire named Ted Marr. New rule. Stop telling me your husband's not flammable. I thought he had money to burn, and now you're telling me that he's dead of carbon monoxide poisoning. This time a socialist. And with that, this has been Grubstakers.

I'm Yogi Poywall. I'm Andy Palmer. Steve Jeffers. I'm Sean McCarthy. Thanks for listening. Thank you to our patrons. Check us out for bonus episodes every week. We'll be back next week.

This week our episode is on Venezuela. That's right. So we'll see you over there. Bye-bye. Bye. Thanks. Today we're lucky enough to be one of the few to see the preview of Christie's sale on the 14th of May in Geneva. And this sale includes 70 lots of jewels donated by

Lily Safra and it's called Jewels for Hope. And in amongst these jewels there are 18 lots of pieces by jar which means that it's the first time that such a number of jar jewels have come up for sale. And with me is Joanna Hardy and we've had a look round and Joanna's going to tell us a bit more about those pieces. What is really unique about it is that and very telling about the person who collected these is the way that she's got the best of the new

and the best of the old. Now I'm just thinking about like, what would a Jewish Mario do? Yeah, of course. Genie's out of the bottle. Italian Mario Has to fight himself as a boss battle Italian Jewish Mario

Mario Goes to an Italian restaurant and enjoys A great meal and then he goes Waiter there was a fly In it I don't have to pay now Sorry Yeah well Such a terrible food and such a small of portions

Wahoo Alright well I can't have alfredo sauce and a meat in my pasta We wouldn't pass Robert Smith's test I'd love to be a socialist podcast That just does anti-semitism As a joke