An ultra-secretive network rules independent oil trading. Its mentor: Marc Rich One brisk day last fall, globe-trotting oil executive Benjamin R. Pollner was leaving his luxury prewar apartment building on Manhattan's Park Avenue when detectives from Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau's office approached. They began asking him about his alleged involvement in the unfolding U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal. Pollner, a tall, lean sixtysomething who wears European-cut clothes and a world-weary visage, was taken aback, say investigators familiar with the incident. He snapped that he was in a hurry to make an overseas flight and refused to answer questions. Before hopping into a car that whisked him off to John F. Kennedy International airport, Morgenthau's investigators say Pollner delivered a parting shot: "I did nothing...
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