Nathan Jacobson: The West Group International

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird Dept: It was a harried yet lucrative life, flying a private jet to remote business deals in Siberia, closing transactions over vodka and a shvitz and dodging Russian mobsters in the Wild West world of post-Soviet capitalism, according to The Star. A philanthropist nonpareil in the Canadian Jewish community, he rubbed shoulders with Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, all while evading a 2008 guilty plea he made in a U.S. court for conspiracy to commit money laundering and in the early years of the free-market free-for-all that exploded after the Soviet Union s collapse, Nathan Jacobson was General Motors man in Moscow. Once called Canada s capitalist cowboy in Russia, the Toronto man earned a separate fortune exporting steel under his company, The West Group International. As Jacobson s wealth grew over the next two decades through separate ventures in online pharmacies and payment processing, so did his generosity. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.