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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 Co
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 fu
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 co
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 co
Camp Yereim denies any co
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.