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Articles Related to Aris Nyad’s post-WWII Greece-Switzerland Smuggling Operation
In the years just after World War II, the United States poured millions of dollars into Greece to support the government in their Civil War against the communists. Many of those dollars ended up in the pockets of wealthy Greeks. In order to shield their wealth from inflation, rich Greeks traditionally kept their money in the form of gold sovereigns, the importation of which was illegal. Enter Aris Nyad and his friends. To satisfy a U.S.-generated need to exchange dollars for gold, they engineered a smuggling operation that was “the biggest in Greece's history.”
The above quotes come from Andreas Papandreaou’s Democracy at Gunpoint: The Greek Front, pages 74–79. Though Papandreou doesn’t mention Aris Nyad, he details what brought the smuggling operation into existence and how it worked.
In 1949, a Swiss court convicted Nyad in absentia. They fined him $50,000 and sentenced him to three years in prison. He eventually served time in Zurich for fraud.
(Also see Aris Nyad biographical timeline.)
1948
29 Oct - The Misadventures of a Neuchatel Pilot in Greece / Les Mesaventures D’un Pilote Neuchatelois en Grece (La Suisse Libérale)
10 Dec - César Rubirosa and his Swiss secretary, Yvonne Neury, arrested for smuggling (NY Herald Tribune)
10 Dec - another version of above article (NY Daily News)
10 Dec - Rubirosa and Neury, jailed for smuggling (Minneapolis Star)
11 Dec - another version (NY Herald Tribune)
11 Dec - and another (NY Herald Tribune)
14 Dec - Rubirosa says he’ll marry Neury (NY Daily News)
16 Dec - Photo of Rubirosa and Neury (Decatur Herald)
1949
11 Jan - Many Separate Cases of Smuggling Between Switzerland and Greece / De nombreuses affaires distinctes de contrebande entre la Suisse et la Grèce (Feuille d’Avis de Neuchâtel - Switzerland)
11 Jan - Held as a witness . . . / Retenu comme témoin . . . (L'Impartial - Switzerland)
17 Jan - Who made the phone call? / Qui a doné le coup de téléphone? (Journal de Genève - Switzerland)
20 Jan - Court reduces Rubirosa, Neury fines (NY Herald Tribune)
21 Jan - About a case of gold smuggling / Autour d’une affaire de trafic d’or (Journal de Genève)
22 Jan - About complaints and counter-complaints / A propos de plaintes et de contre-plaintes (Journal de Genève)
28 Jan - Greeks trying 26 for smuggling, including Aris Nyad in absentia (NY Herald Tribune)
28 Jan - another version (The Stars and Stripes)
12 Feb - Athenian Smugglers in Action / Atheense Smokkelaars In Actie (color version) (De Waarheid - Netherlands)
18 Feb - “Greeks Destroy Huge Gold Smuggling Ring” (The Arizona Republic)
27 Feb - another version of above (Advocate, Baton Rouge)
20 Mar - and another (The Scrantonian)
6 Oct - The Neuchâtel pilot Gérard de Chambrier is back / Le pilote neuchâtelois Gérard de Chambrier est de retour (Feuille d’Avis de Neuchâtel)
1951
25 Jan - Abused Host Country / Missbrauchtes Gastland (Neue Zürcher Nachrichten - Switzerland)
25 Jan - The Underworld of Gold: The Case of Aris Nyad, I / Die Unterwelt des Goldes: Der Fall Aris Nyad, I (Die Tat - Switzerland)
26 Jan - The Underworld of Gold: The Case of Aris Nyad, II / Die Unterwelt des Goldes: Der Fall Aris Nyad, II / (Die Tat)
1953 - 1954
Three items by gossip columnist Cholly Knickerbocker (the pen name of Igor Cassini)
27 Nov - “Mystery Man? Not Now,”
27 Dec - Aris Nyad weds Lucy Curtis Sneed
12 Jan - Followup: Aris did well for himself.
1954
26 Jan - Photo of César Rubirosa and his Greek wife. He never did marry Yvonne Neury. (The Indianapolis News)
27 Jan - “Hutton Has Rubirosa; Greeks Have One, Too” (Los Angeles Times)
21 Aug - Greeks tell César Rubirosa to leave (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
16 Sep - Rubirosa trying to get airfare (Syracuse Herald-Journal)
1978 - article about Gérard de Chambrier's history in aviation (sans mention of Aris Nyad)
24 Oct - “Air Espace : the light aviation niche” / “Air Espace: le créneau de I aviation légère” (3 mb pdf version)