The True, Sinister Origin of Bronfman Family Wealth
Clare and Sara Bronfman, who fund NXIVM, and their master, Keith Alan Raniere, are the granddaughters of a gent named Samuel Bronfman.
In the early 20th century, Sam Bronfman, with his brothers Abe, Harry and Alan, began a modest hotel and prostitution chain. During Canada’s prohibition (1915-19), they added illegal liquor and converted the hotels – with their live-in prostitutes – into “boozeriums.”
For the first three years of Canadian Prohibition, business was brisk. But in 1918, a law was passed that prohibited the manufacture or importation of alcohol. There was a loophole, happily, that permitted distribution by pharmacists of alcohol for “medicinal” purposes.
The Bronfmans immediately went into the pharmacy business, selling, via mail order, their whiskey, putting labels on bottles such as “Rock-A-Bye Cough Cure” and “Dandy Bracer–Liver and Kidney Cure.”
With the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919, making liquor illegal in the United States, Sam and Harry opened export houses along the Saskatchewan-North Dakota border. They reduced 65-over proof white alcohol, mixing it with water, a little real whiskey and a touch of burnt sugar. A shot of sulfuric acid simulated the aging process.
