Celebrity Living: Tamir Sapir

Tamir Sapir: Great Neck, New York

Sapir arrived in the United States in 1973, becoming a taxicab driver in New York City. Saving up to buy an electronics store, he catered primarily to Russian clientele. Eventually he made contacts with the Soviet contingent to the United Nations in New York, and traded electronics for oil contracts, which he then sold to American companies. Investing the profits in Manhattan real estate, he became a billionaire by 2002, less than thirty years after his humble beginnings in New York.