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(Serge) Alexandre Stavisky

Swindler, born in Kiev, Ukraine. He went to Paris in 1900 and was naturalized in 1914. He floated a series of fraudulent companies, and in 1933 was discovered to be handling bonds to the value of more than 500 million francs on behalf of the municipal pawnshop in Bayonne. He fled to Chamonix, and probably committed suicide; but in the meantime the affair had revealed widespread corruption in the government, business, the judiciary, and the police, and precipitated the fall (1934) of the prime minister, Camille Chautemps.

Serge Alexandre Stavisky (November 20, 1886 – January 8, 1934) was a French financier and embezzler whose actions created a political scandal that became known as the Stavisky Affair.

In 1927, Stavisky was put on trial for fraud for first time.

Alexandre Stavisky was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.

In 1974, film director Alain Resnais told the story in the film "Stavisky" that featured Jean-Paul Belmondo in the title role and Anny Dupérey as his beautiful wife Arlette.

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