Banker Edmond Safra died in a fire his nurse set in Monaco while his bank was being sold to HSBC

Edmond Safra built Republic National Bank of New York. In May 1999 HSBC agreed to buy his banking group for $10.3 billion in cash. Safra was 67 and had Parkinson's disease. Weeks before his death, his wife Lily moved his Monaco guards to the family estate in France. Early on 3 December 1999 his nurse Ted Maher, hired that year, stabbed himself, claimed two intruders had attacked him, and lit a fire in a wastebasket. A second nurse, Vivian Torrente, took Safra into a secure dressing room. She phoned for help at 5:00, 5:20, 5:30, 6:15 and 6:30 a.m. Rescuers reached them too late, and both died. Maher admitted setting the fire. In December 2002 a Monaco jury deliberated three hours and convicted him of arson causing two deaths. He got 10 years; prosecutors had asked for 12. On 21 January 2003 he sawed through his cell bars and escaped; police caught him in Nice about seven hours later. He served about eight years. In 2008 a Monaco judge alleged the verdict had been agreed in advance; prosecutors denied it. HSBC cut its price to $9.85 billion^†. Safra left most of his estate to the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation and enough to Lily to make her a billionaire. Lily died in July 2022, aged 87. In 2026 the foundation still funds science, medicine, religion and education. In March 2025 an Eddy County, New Mexico jury convicted Maher, now named Jon Green, of plotting to have his wife killed.