This is just too Rich...

According to an article by Niles Lathem in today's NY Post, unnamed law enforcement sources say that pardoned billionaire oil trader Marc Rich is hip deep in the UN Oil for Food scandal. Evidently, he played a central role in helping recipients of Saddam's oil vouchers to find traders and importers who could handle the transportation and sale of the oil.

WASHINGTON — Billionaire Marc Rich has emerged as a central figure in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal and is under investigation for brokering deals in which scores of international politicians and businessmen cashed in on sweetheart oil deals with Saddam Hussein, The Post has learned.

Rich, the fugitive Swiss-based commodities trader who received a controversial pardon from President Bill Clinton in January 2001, is a primary target of criminal probes under way in the U.S. attorney's office in New York and by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, sources said.

"We think he was a major player in this — a central figure," a senior law-enforcement official told The Post.

Investigators are looking into a series of deals that took place in the months after his pardon from Clinton. If criminal wrongdoing is established in these deals, he could be subject to prosecution.