A billionaire French hotelier has been shot dead ‘in a professional hit’ in the Paris mansion he bought to showcase his Art Deco collection.
Claude Dray, 76, was found with three bullet holes in the neck in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the Paris suburb where President Nicolas Sarkozy built his career and still owns property.
He was found by his butler dressed only in a T-shirt and shorts, in his bedroom at 9am on Tuesday.
Bullet cartridges were found next to Mr Dray, with detectives saying they were fired from a pistol which was around 15 years old. No weapon was found.
There were no signs of a struggle and nothing was stolen from the palatial ‘Villa Madrid’, which is considered to be one of the most secure houses the French capital.
Police said it had the hallmarks of a ‘professional hit.’
‘Somebody got in and fired three bullets into the victim’s neck,’ said one detective at the scene, adding that a silencer had likely been used as domestic staff heard nothing.
His wife, Simone, was in the US, where four years ago her husband bought the famous National Hotel in South Beach, Miami.
Mr Dray, one of the most prominent Jews in France, also owned the Hotel de Paris in St Tropez, one of the most popular celebrity institutions on the French Riviera, as well as a string of other hotels around the world.
He had bought Villa Madrid in 1990 as he and his wife built up a vast Art Deco collection of furniture and other objects, which featured some 25 pieces by Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann alone.
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