Serge Rubinstein

Serge Rubinstein was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, to Dmitri and Stella Rubinstein. His father was a money lender to the Czar and a financial adviser to Grigory Rasputin. The family fled Russia during the Russian Revolution, going to Sweden, Austria, and France. Serge finally settled in England, where he graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in economics.

Business dealings

Rubinstein joined the Banque Franco-Asiatique in Paris and by 1932 was running the bank. He was accused of manipulating the French franc by short selling and was expelled from France by Pierre Laval in 1935.

Rubinstein entered the United States in 1938 on a phony Portuguese passport that he had purchased for $2000. The passport was under the name of Serge Manuel Rubinstein de Rovello. He said he was the illegitimate son of a Russian father and Portuguese mother (Rubinstein's brother Andre would later sue Serge on behalf of their mother for defamation of character because of this claim). He had stock dealings in Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation and Postal Telegraph during 1939 and 1940 which earned him a substantial sum. His political contributions gained him a dinner at the White House with Eleanor Roosevelt.

The British company Chosen Corporation, Ltd. owned three gold mines in Korea. One of its directors, Martin Coles Harman, was convicted of misappropriating funds from the company and its stock price fell. Rubinstein bought stock in the company and gained control. He sold the mines to a Japanese company for the Japanese yen equivalent of $1.7 million, keeping the money for himself. Because Japan had restrictions on the exportation of its currency, Rubinstein smuggled Japanese yen valued at $1.2 million out of Japan. Rubinstein was sued in 1941 in New York by other Chosen Corp. shareholders for $5.9 million, with the suit being settled out of court in 1946 for $2 million.