Credit: Wikipedia - Barande Jeremy / Ecole polytechnique
Earlier this year, Patrick Drahi signaled that he wanted to spend more time in Israel for family reasons and now has transferred his official residency to the country, showing a departure from the telecom billionaire’s long standing base in Europe. Drahi turns his focus to the Middle East, as he has strong links in Israel through control of telecom operator Hot Telecommunication System Ltd., part of Altice International. He also launched Tel Aviv-based news channel i24News.
Drahi is Cohen. He was born into an orthodox Jewish family in Morocco. When he was 15, the family moved to France. He has Portuguese, French and Israeli passports, as well as from St Kitts & Nevis. He regularly spent time on Nevis, and has even sought modifications to the island’s airport to accommodate a private jet.
Drahi is a successful businessman. He built up a constellation of companies over three decades into one of Europe’s biggest telecommunications providers. His productive work has always aroused envy against him. In Portugal, some "anonymous letters" reached the point of questioning his Portuguese origins.
His family 's surnames, Adrehi, Sicsu and Amou are surnames of traditional Sephardic families originally from Portugal and Spain. These families even returned to Portugal after the Inquisition. There are records of the Adrehi in the cemeteries of the Jewish community in Ponta Delgada, Terceira, Angra do Heroísmo, Horta and Faial. Members of the Sicsu family lived and were buried in the Faro cemetery, and the Amou also returned to Portugal, and lived in Lisbon, Faro, Azores and Oporto, when the shadow of the Holy Office disappeared.
