Ultra Orthodox Jews Running Drug Empire

By Deborah Camiel (Reuters)October 16, 1999

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Ultra-Orthodox Jews served as couriers for a major international drugs ring that operated in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Israel and the United States, Israeli police said Tuesday.
The syndicate, led by two Israelis living in Europe, was one of the world's largest producers of the synthetic drug ecstasy, police said.

Updating arrest figures announced by Dutch police Monday after dawn raids on the ring's drug laboratories in the Netherlands, Israeli police said at a news conference that 41 suspects had been detained overseas and another eight in Israel.

"The couriers were young Americans and Israelis, most of them ultra-Orthodox Jews," an Israeli police spokesman said. He declined to say whether they wore traditional black garb on their smuggling runs.
About one million ecstasy tablets were seized by police in Israel and abroad, the spokesman said.

Twenty-four Israelis, most of them living overseas, were among those arrested.

Two Israelis, one residing in the Netherlands and the other in Belgium, were the masterminds behind the operation, and an ultra-Orthodox man recruited young religious Jews to smuggle the drugs. All three are in custody, Israeli police said.

Dutch police said Monday's raids on 35 addresses in the Netherlands and the Belgium city of Antwerp marked the culmination of a three-year investigation.

Along with laboratory equipment used in making synthetic drugs, five kilograms (11 lbs) of Semtex high explosive as well as weapons, cars and money were also recovered, a Dutch police spokeswoman said.
Israeli police said an Israeli undercover agent had been key to busting the ring.

The agent, who appeared at the Jerusalem news conference disguised with a wig and false mustache, managed to buy 60,000 ecstasy tablets from the main suspect in the investigation during 10 months of undercover work in the Netherlands, police said.

The Jerusalem Post, Internet News Article, February 25th, 2000:
New York police crack Israeli-Russian Ecstasy ring
By Marilyn Henry

NEW YORK (February 25) - Israeli and Russian organized-crime syndicates control the entry of the "club drug" Ecstasy into the US, federal authorities in New York said yesterday, after cracking a multimillion-dollar international drug ring.
Six Israelis were at the heart of the international network, the authorities said.

Sixty-one people have been arrested in the last two weeks, or are being sought, as part of the ring, whose business stretched from New York to California and Florida, federal and New York authorities announced on Wednesday.

They alleged that the drugs were smuggled into the US by six Israeli nationals, whose base was a flat in Forest Hills, Queens.

"This is an extremely significant case, because it shuts off one of the most active supply lines for Ecstasy in the New York region, distributing as many as 100,000 tablets a week," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Authorities seized 300,000 tablets of the drug, worth an estimated $7.5 million, and said the ring pumped some 100,000 pills a week into metropolitan New York.

The drug, which reportedly was made in the Netherlands and Belgium, is a hybrid of the hallucinogen mescaline and the stimulant amphetamine chemically known as MDMA.

"This case demonstrates that the Netherlands and Belgium have become the main location for manufacturing and exporting MDMA," Donnie Marshall, acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a statement.

"To add to the globalization of this problem, Israeli and Russian organized-crime syndicates have gained control of the smuggling of MDMA from Europe into the US," he said.

A DEA spokesman was unable to elaborate on or substantiate the assertions about organized-crime syndicates.

Authorities had not contacted the Israeli Consulate in New York about the arrests, and the consulate had no information on the alleged smugglers.

Police in Jerusalem said they had been informed of the arrests.

"As in all cases we are notified by Interpol when Israelis are arrested overseas," said Ofer Sivan, deputy spokesman for the Israel Police.

The arrests were the latest among dozens of Israelis said to have been detained on drug charges in New York in the last year.

Last April, federal and state authorities began an undercover investigation after a man in Queens -identified as an Israeli named Oshri Amar, 23 - allegedly was selling large quantities of Ecstasy.

Among those arrested were five Israelis who were the alleged principals of the network. They were identified as Igal Malka, 37; Yariv Azulay, 27; Oshri Ganchrski, 30; Eyal Levy, 26; and Robert Levy, 36. Amar was a fugitive and believed to be in Florida, authorities said.

They face multiple charges, including conspiracy to sell and distribute a controlled substance, and each faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

(Margot Dudkevitch contributed to this report.)

The Jerusalem Post, Internet News Article, July 20th, 2001:
Two Israelis arrested in largest drug bust in NYC history

By Melissa Radler

NEW YORK (July 20) - Two Israeli citizens were arrested Tuesday night in Manhattan on drug possession charges after police seized more than a million Ecstasy tablets, the largest drug bust in New York City history.
Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik announced Wednesday that David Roash, 25, and Israel Ashkenazi, 28, both of Tel Aviv, were being held in Queens Criminal Court pending drug possession charges. The two face eight and a half years to life in prison if convicted.

The pink, blue, and white Ecstasy pills, which weighed a total of 450 pounds and have a street value $40 million, and nearly $200,000 in cash were found in a studio apartment near the financial district, said Keric at a press conference. Keric said the two Israelis entered the US on May 22 and were identified as wholesale drug dealers by detectives from a Queens narcotics unit. He declined further comment.

In 2000, police seized a total of 385 pounds of Ecstasy, said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown at the conference. Brown's office is handling the case.

"There are a million less Ecstasy pills in the city that won't get to our kids, to the clubs, and schoolyards," Kerik said.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said at the news conference, held at police headquarters, that he hopes the drug bust "will go a long way to interrupt the purchase and the sale of Ecstasy, and also remind people how dangerous it is."

The Jerusalem Post, Internet News Article, August 2nd, 2001:
International Ecstasy ring smashed by police

By Itim

JERUSALEM (August 2) - An Ecstasy-smuggling ring has been cracked by the Israel Police, in collaboration with its counterparts in the US and Europe.
Seventeen Israelis are being held in Spain and the US, and more arrests are expected. The ring is believed to have operated for a year.

The investigation began in March, when the Northern District police learned that an Ecstasy ring led by Oded Tuito was still active, although he was under arrest in Barcelona on different charges. The district passed information it had to the various countries concerned, and set up joint surveillance operations.

A big break came when three Israelis - Eitan and Erez Noi and Yosef Hotvashvilli - were arrested in Barcelona for several jewelry-store heists, which turned up enough evidence to arrest Michel Elkayam - believed to have led the Ecstasy ring in lieu of Tuito - and his accomplices in North America.

These are Ya'acov Levy, of Netanya; Victor Mor-Yosef, of Afula; Ephraim Za'afri, of Rehovot; Shimon Kaslasi, of Kiryat Bialik; Rahel Lahmi, of Rehovot; Itai Aviv, of Upper Nazareth; and Kfir Bazak, of Afula. Also under arrest are Yitzhak Sabag, of Yokne'am; Yehiel Amouyal, of Haifa; Nissim Alul, of Netanya; and Oren Gadasi, of Even Yehuda.

Half a million Ecstasy pills were also seized in various locations worldwide - some of the millions the ring is believed to have smuggled. Elderly couriers were favored by the ring, as were anonymous mailing addresses to which the drugs would be shipped.

Among those arrested in Barcelona was Shimon Itah, a known felon from Haifa, who is suspected of laundering the ring's profits.

On July 18, David Ro'ash and Yisrael Ashkenazi, both of Tel Aviv, were arrested in New York in a raid in which police seized Ecstasy pills worth $40 million, reportedly the largest cash-value drug haul in New York history.

Reuters, New York, Wednesday, October 9, 2002:
Three Israelis accused in New York of Ecstasy smuggle

NEW YORK, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Three Israeli nationals were arrested and accused of trying to smuggle $42 million worth of hallucinogenic Ecstasy pills to the United States from Belgium, the largest such drug seizure ever in Europe, U.S. authorities said on Wednesday.
The three men tried to smuggle 1.4 million pills inside diamond polishing tables bound for New York by ship from Antwerp, according to a statement from the office of Roslynn Mauskopf [where DO they get these names], U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Tipped off by witnesses who saw two of the men stuffing the pills into three tables inside an Antwerp warehouse in August, authorities allowed the tables to be delivered -- without the pills -- to New York where they were put under surveillance.

The three men were arrested on Tuesday as they were retrieving the tables and trying to deliver the drugs to a buyer, the statement said. The case marks the largest Ecstasy seizure in Europe and the third largest such seizure in the United States, with a wholesale value of about $14 million and a retail value of about $42 million, officials said.

Arrested were Nachshow Sinvanni, who allegedly wanted to buy 900,000 of the pills for distribution; and Ofir Lebar and Ofir Weizman, who were spotted packing the tables with drugs in Belgium, officials said.

All three men live in Israel, authorities said. They each were charged with conspiring to import MDMA, the technical name for Ecstasy and, if convicted, face a possible prison sentence of 20 years and a $1 million fine.

Article from the New York Daily News, Online Edition:

Saturday, November 2nd, 2002
Bust drug money ring

By ROBERT GEARTY and GREG B. SMITH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

AN international money-laundering ring run by New York Hasidim washed millions of dollars in cocaine proceeds for the Colombian cartels, prosecutors disclosed yesterday.
The group laundered at least $1.7 million for the druglords, holding secret meetings with the Colombians in Miami and midtown Manhattan, according to papers filed by Manhattan U.S. Attorney James Comey.

The suspects were brazen - up to $500,000 would be laundered at a time.

One of the suspects, Avraham Zaltzman, allegedly bragged that he "could pick up money anywhere and wire it anywhere," according to FBI affidavits accompanying the arrests.

Zaltzman was so brazen that he allegedly picked up drug money himself in Madrid in April and flew to London, where he was detained by British Customs. They found $460,000 concealed in his vest.

Yesterday, FBI and Customs agents arrested Zaltzman and Aaron Bornstein, both of Borough Park, Brooklyn.

Ringleader hunted

Bornstein runs an interior design business there, and Zaltzman is a part-time printer who spends most of his time in Israel, officials said.

A third man who was believed to be the ringleader, Akiva Apter, remained a fugitive. Three others were named as unindicted co-conspirators.

The case came together in April after agents busted one of the co-conspirators - a man who speaks Yiddish and Spanish - and got him to cooperate.

The informant agreed to secretly record hundreds of conversations with his partners. He told the agents that between early 2001 and the day they caught him, he had delivered $1.7 million in drug proceeds.

The informer began recording his calls, more than 400 in all. He also recounted his involvement in the group, starting with one of his first meetings in Manhattan's Diamond District early last year, an affidavit filed by FBI Agent Michael McGarrity states.

The informant said he had traveled to Miami, where he learned the group was involved in delivering cash from drug sales in the United States back to the kingpins in Colombia.

Cash flow

Seven times, the informer helped move the cash through businesses and bank accounts, in amounts up to $500,000, he told the FBI. He recorded a June 13 talk with Bornstein in which Bornstein instructed him on how to deposit cash in amounts of less than $10,000 to avoid scrutiny, the affidavit states.

At the same time, the bureau began bugging conversations of other conspirators. In one April 21 talk, the informer discussed a shipment of cocaine with one of the unnamed co-conspirators.

Yesterday, Bornstein appeared before U.S. Magistrate Douglas Eaton and was released on $500,000 bond to be secured by $200,000 in cash. About a half-dozen Hasidim showed up for the arraignment.

His lawyer, Paul Schectman, declined comment, as did prosecutors.

Zaltzman was jailed pending a bail hearing next week. He requested a prayer book and prayer shawl while behind bars.

At least two other ring members have pleaded guilty to money laundering and are cooperating in the probe in the hopes of winning lighter jail time.
 

History of Banking Fraud: The Coming Battle By M. W. WALBERT

The Coming Battle documents from Congressional records, newspaper reports and writings by the founding fathers and others a chronology of events long forgotten that shaped our fledgling nation from 1776 to 1899. Read about the manipulation of our money and its supply, the intentional creation of recessions, depressions and panics, manipulation of the stock markets, and the demonetization of silver.

Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins