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FBI "sting" operation, as part of which it established a dummy corporation called Prism, which served the gang for laundering money.
In the course of less than one year $22.5 million were laundered through the company. The head of the ring was an Israeli named Zion Ya'akov Evenheim,
known as "Zero". Evenheim, who had a dual Israeli and Colombian citizenship, stayed in Kali, from where he coordinated the activity and supervised the
transfers of money. Most of the ring's members were arrested in May 1993. Evenheim was arrested by Interpol in Switzerland and extradited to the US. He
is cooperating with the FBI.
Additional Israeli detainees: Raymond Shoshana, 38, Daniella Levi, 30, Binyamin Hazon, Meir Ochayon, 33, Alex Ajami, 34. Many other suspects, to whom
we will later return, escaped to Israel, and there are difficulties in extraditing them to the US.
In the course of the investigation, FBI agents recorded hundreds of hours of conversations in Hebrew among the Israeli suspects. For the purpose of
translating the material, they employed, among others, Neil Elefant, a Jewish resident of New Jersey who had lived in Israel for some time and who spoke
fluent Hebrew.
Elefant translated and translated, until one day in May 1992 he was amazed to discover among the speakers a friend, Jack Zbeida, a Jewish antiques dealer
from Brooklyn, Elefant was in a difficult dilemma. He approached his rabbi, Elazar Teitz, who told him that his religious duty was to warn Zbeida. Elefant then
secretly met Zbeida and told him that he was targeted by the FBI. Alex Ajami, an Israeli Jew who was one of the heads of the gang, was also present.
Zbeida and Ajami hurried to the FBI offering to cooperate, turning in Elefant, who was arrested and charged with interfering with legal procedures.
He argued that one of the reasons for his decision to warn Zbeida was the zealousness, almost approaching anti-Semitism, which he found among the FBI
agents trying to involve the State of Israel in drug affairs. Judge Kevin Duffy sentenced Elefant to I8 months' imprisonment. In the meantime the FBI was
forced to arrest hurriedly all those involved in the affair.
In spite of their hurry, many Israeli Jews involved fled to Israel. Some few of the tens of Israeli and American Jews who fled to Israel on this occasion are:
Raymond Shosliana, Adi Tal, David Va'anunu, his nephew Yisliai Vanunu, Ya'akov Cohen. Most of them came out of the affair with a lot of money which
they also took to Israel.
The story of Adi Tal is worthy of elaboration. He is an impressive youth, handsome, with a good record in the army, a son of a fine Israeli family, formerly a
security guard at El Al. All that did not hinder Tal from becoming involved in laundering drug money in 1988. In March 1988 the American authorities
arrested I I members of the laundering ring, including Tal and his good friend Nir Goldstein, also an Israeli.
The investigators at the time said that Tal and his friends had operated cautiously, used aliases and codes and lived in constant fear. They would receive large
amounts of money from Colombian couriers, divide the money into sums of $10,000 (any amount over 10,000 dollars that is deposited in an American bank
requires a report), deposit the sums in banks and convert them into travelers' checks which they sent, by means of international couriers, to a dummy
corporation in Panama. The most popular code which Tal's gang used was taken from the diamond industry. When information was transmitted about the
transfer of a diamond of 30.4 carats, it meant the sum of $30,400. Tal worked for Jose Satro, the money launderer of the Kali cartel. The Colombians
constantly pressured him to increase the scope of the laundering.
Tal was afraid. "He lived in constant fear, his bags were always packed and he was prepared to flee at any minute to Israel," one investigator said.
An important member of Tal's laundering ring was Rabbi Shalom Leviatan, a Lubavitch Hassad, head of their branch in Seattle. It is assumed that all the
considerable political power of these Hassids and of their rebbe (then alive) was exerted in favor of that laundering ring.
"My intentions were good," Leviatan said after he was captured. "A person learns from experience," he added. According to him, he did not know that he
was laundering drug money and he was certain that he helped Iranian Jews trying to smuggle their money out of Iran. Leviatan got out cheaply and was
sentenced to 30 days' community service. Tal, who confessed to laundering $10 million, was sentenced to 52 months' imprisonment. He served his sentence
at Danbury jail in Connecticut but he did not learn his lesson. When he was released, he joined a gang which was captured in the FBI's "sting" operation. This
time he managed to flee to Israel where he apparently remains to this day.
The gold and diamond industry has recently become the favorite of the drug barons, due to the numerous possibilities for laundering which it contains. One of
the popular methods is laundering by means of trading in gold. This is how it works. The drug money is converted into gold, which is smuggled to Colombia,
from where it is exported to Milano and used to make jewelry which then legitimately returns to 47th Street. "The funniest thing in this business," say the
investigators, "is that the jewelry comes here under favored import conditions because the gold seemingly originates from Colombia and that state possesses
favored terms of trade with tile US." There are also other methods. Drug money is deposited in the accounts of diamond merchants as though it were their
profits and is later transferred to Colonibia.
Sophisticated diamond deals are made between various parties with the aiin of "releasing" large amounts of money on the side. Sums of less than $10,000 are
deposited in various bank accounts, converted into travelers' checks and then transported to their final destination.
But in spite of the ingenuity, undoubtedly one of the most popular and
successful ways to launder money is through Jewish religious institutions, such as yeshivas and synagogues. Since the majority of the 47th Street gold and
diamond merchants are religious Jews the process is made easier. The Jewish religious institutions badly need funds. The Colombian drug traders can be
generous. They transfer their drug money as donations, which go to the Jewish religious institutions one way and come out by the other way back to the
donors. On the way, the synagogue or yeshiva obtains a respectable percentage for its pious uses. Everyone is happy, the drug barons who launder their
money quickly and efficiently and the synagogue or yeshiva which makes easy money.
The first laundering operation in which a Jewish institute in New York was involved was exposed in 1984. A ring which laundered about $23 million while
making a profit of $2 million operated at the oldest yeshiva in the city, Tifereth Yerushalayim, located in Manhattan. The laundering was performed for the
Kali cartel. The contact man was David Va'anunu, mentioned in the context of the Prism affair, who worked with the cartel's major launderer, Jose Satro.
The yeshiva's representative was a very pious Hassid, Mendel Goldenberger, who daily received cash from Va'anunu and deposited the money in the
yeshiva's accounts.
Goldenberger, who claimed not to have known the source of the money, was convicted of forging bank documents and given five years' suspended
imprisonment. Va'anunu was convicted, sentenced to eight years' imprisonment but released much earlier after he became an informer for the DEA. Later, as
was stated, he ran into trouble again and fled the US. Nine persons were convicted in that affair, including Rabbi Israel Eidelman, Vice President of the
yeshiva and some of its dignitaries. Tiferet Yer-ushalayim faced financial difficulties at that time. It leaders attempted to maintain the students by paying them
from the laundered drug profits.
The phenomenon, incidentally, is very common among New York Jews. Many Jewish congregations are dying because their members are leaving the city or
their former neighborhoods. Thus, the congregations are losing their sources of income and facing large debts. In that situation the road is short for the
synagogue or yeshiva to launder drug money as a pious duty, since it means easy money and lots of it. "Laundering money is extremely beneficial to the
yeshivas and other Jewish religious institutions," said a source close to the investigation. "They are in a difficult situation and therefore they turn a blind eye to
the drug problem. They don't ask what the source of the money is as long as it keeps coming in."
The attitude of the pious Jewish community, according to the same source, is: "Drugs are sold anyway. As long as it does not harm our own community and
only does good for it, it doesn't matter if we benefit from drug trade." The role of the Israelis is, in many cases, to make the connection between the religious
Jewish communities of New York and the Colombians.
The Colombians are more satisfied with this method of laundering than with any other because, for political reasons, it is a relatively secure way of which it
could be initially assumed that it was not going to be forcibly investigated by the US authorities. Only in July 1990 the situation began to change.
The Federal authorities renewed an investigation of some Williamsburg Hassids, owners of jewelry shops on 47th Street, who were suspected of laundering
drug money. The investigation focused on the brothers Naftali, Naiklosh and Yitzhak Slilesinger, and on Ya'akov Shlesinger (Naftali's son) and Milon
Jakloby, his nephew. The investigators found evidence of close connections between the Slilesingers and the Andonian brothers, members of a Colombian
family accused of laundering, almost one billion dollars. The Shlesingers were suspected of laundering money by means of a subsidiary called Bali, through
checks drawn from the account of "Camp Yereim" ["Camp of the Pious]" a Hassidic summer camp in the Catskills.
Camp Yereim denies any connection with these checks. On April 7 of this year, Rabbi Abraham Lau, a prominent Hassid from "Magen Abraham" synagogue
in Los Angeles was convicted of conspiring to launder drug money. Lau is married to the niece of the Satmar Rebbe, Moshe Teitlebaumi, who wields
enormous political influence in New York State.
Unfortunately, Lau told an undercover FBI agent about a "sacred network" of Satmar Hassids in which other Orthodox Jews had also participated. The
"sacred network", whose membership was strictly limited to pious Jews, operated in the 47th Street area in New York and was capable of laundering up to
$5 million weekly, thanks to its widespread contacts with Jewish charitable institutions.
Unfortunately, law enforcement agents in New York do not believe that the "sacred network" and the many other Jewish laundering rings have any sanctity.
In the past year the Federal activity concerning Israelis and Jews on 47th Street has greatly increased. The investigators now employ the services of many
Hebrew translators since the rings, even if composed of native American Jews, employ only "the sacred language" for their operations.
Aharon Sharir is, undoubtedly, the major Israeli launderer. He was born in Iraq about 45 years ago, immigrated to Israel with his family at the age of one
year, graduated from an Israeli high school, served with distinction in the army and became an expert in fixing delicate mechanical instruments used to mend
gold jewelry. In 1979, Sharir came to New York on a tourist visa with $6,000 in his pocket. He went into the gold business, established a small plant for
manufacturing gold jewelry and did well. Then, through another Israeli diamond trader, he discovered the laundering business. Sharir reached a laundering
activity of about $160,000 per day, six days per week (laundering is not done on the Sabbath), but in 1985 his wings were clipped when he was accused of
having swindled a New York bank to the tune of $3 million. He quickly returned the money and was sentenced to a fine and a suspended prison sentence.
In 1988 Sharir's laundering activities reached amazing heights. His gold shop on 47tll Street became one of the greatest laundering centers in the entire US.
"Three times a week," Sharir told the court at one of the many trials in which he is now testifying, "we received the cash. It used to arrive in canvas sacks, in
cardboard boxes or in suitcases. Sometimes there were a million dollars in one shipment."
Roy Lopez, representing the Colombian cartels, would arrive from Miami equipped with a document sent from Colombia which contained detailed coded
instructions about where to send the money. "Even with automatic money-counting machines it was difficult to count the money," Sharir testified. "It arrived in
bills of 5, 10 and 20 dollars. The bills, most of which had been used to sniff cocaine, had a strong odor of coke. A real stink. My employees could not stand
it. Every 2-3 hours they had to take a break, go out for some fresh air, so as not to get ill."
Sharir's role was to see to it that the money would be transported out of the US and arrive in the bank accounts of the Colombian cartels in Panama and in
Colombia. For that purpose he deposited money into his bank accounts, as though it was his profits from the shop, purchased assets for the use of the drug
cartels, bought and sold gold at inflated prices from merchants who were part of the conspiracy and concealed money through various manipulations.
Finally, all the money was turned into checks drawn on the accounts of Jewish religious institutions. Sharir received from the Colombians 6 percent of the
turnover for his labors. Within a short period of time he moved with his family to a luxurious house in Woodmere, on Long Island. He purchased a luxury
Jaguar car, showered his wife Miryam with expensive jewels and donated lavishly to Jewish charities.
The troubles began in late 1988. In December his shop was raided by American customs and internal revenue agents, after they received notice from his
banks concerning the volume of his deposits. They brought dogs to sniff out drugs, carried out a meticulous search of the offices and took away cars fall of
documents. Sharir did no lose his cool. While the agents were milling around his offices, he managed to conceal $600,000 which were in his bank account at
the time and to transfer the money to a safe place. Simultaneously, Sharir fell out with his Colombian operators who claimed that he stole $26 million of their
drug money. Sharir, who denied the accusation, hired an Israeli professional investigator, Lihu Ichilov, to solve the mystery. Ichilov soon became Sharir's
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