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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 Hassid, 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.