Exiles: The Trujillos Revisited

Last week he became Prisoner 983 in a small provincial lockup in Evreux, a town of 30,000 on the fringes of Normandy, 60 miles from Paris. His shoelaces, necktie, belt and wristwatch have been taken away; his only companions are a pimp and a chicken thief, and he spends his time reading Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine. The joke, of sorts, was on Rhadames Trujillo, 22, multimillionaire son of the Dominican Republic’s late dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Rhadames and three others of the high-living Trujillo clan suddenly face a court fight over the enormous fortune—estimated at something like $100 million—that they carried out of the Dominican Republic between 1930 and 1961, when the Trujillo reign ended.

Family Affair. Rhadamés was picked up on an extradition warrant at the request of a Swiss court. The complainant is not the Dominican government, which has its own extradition proceedings under way. The accusers are members of the Trujillo clan itself—precisely which ones, the lawyers were not saying. But the talk around the Dominican Republic suggested a daughter of the dictator’s first marriage, Flor de Oro, and Trujillo’s second wife, Bienvenida Ricardo, both believed to be in Montreal; two children, Rafael and Yolanda, born to longtime mistress, Lina Lovatón, all three of whom live in Miami. The story goes that they are on the outs with Rhadamés and the rest for hogging all the loot.

So now the “outs” have retained Manhattan’s Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander—the Nixon being Dick—to represent them. A Swiss lawyer, acting on orders from N.M.R.G. & A., brought suit in Switzerland, charging fraud, theft and falsification of waivers; in these waivers, the Trujillo relatives had supposedly disclaimed any share in the family fortune, but they now say they did no such thing.

Named in the suit, besides Rhadamés, are Brother Ramfis, 35, Sister Angelita, 24, and their mother, Maria, 58. It would probably take a battalion of accountants to unscramble all the secret Swiss bank accounts and phantom companies that hide the wealth. But from the looks of things, the Trujillos on the outside are missing a pretty good thing.

Cutting the Caper. Rhadamés and his fellow “ins” live like royalty, tooling around Switzerland, France and Spain in a fleet of Cadillacs, Jaguars and Mercedeses, accompanied by scores of servants, bodyguards and hangers-on. Rhadamés, who looks after the investments in France, cuts the caper in splendor on a $5,000,000 estate near Evreux, with his wife and 15 servants; his three stallions and 20 champion brood mares are already the talk of French racing. In Madrid, Ramfis, his mother and a few other family members occupy three $50,000 apartments in a fashionable section of the city, while Angelita and her husband live in a $1,000,000 estate on the outskirts of town.

So far, only Rhadamés has been picked up by the police. But the lawyers are expected to petition Spanish courts for extradition warrants on which to arrest the others. And if extradition is granted, the four family members will be hauled back to Geneva for what should be one of the most fascinating trials in vears.