Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины

This street is the world center for trading diamonds, gold, jewels and precious stones. Hundreds of businesses are crowded in there, between Fifth and Sixth

Avenues. Shops, businesses, display halls. In the back rooms and on the top floors, far from public access, the action takes place. That is where the major

traders sit, and that is where the deals are made. Diamonds, gold and jewels pass from hand to hand with a handshake. The frantic activity there offers an

ideal cover for illegal transfers of money. "In fact, even legitimate business appears, on 47th Street, to be dark and mysterious," said a customs official.

"Merchandise arrives constantly, boxes, suitcases and packages are constantly opened, everything arrives in armored cars, under heavy security and a shield

of secrecy. Now, go find the black money."

"The match between the drug barons and 47th Street," an American customs investigator told Afaai-ii@, "is ideal. The gold and diamonds industry circulates

large amounts of cash. The diamond traders are accustomed to transporting large amounts of money in cash, from one state to another, efficiently and without

leaving a trace, Large amounts of money pass from hand to hand on 47th Street, without arousing suspicion.

"A diamond trader might launder $5 million every day without arousing special attention. it is difficult to monitor the deals, to locate the sources of the money

and it is very difficult to infiltrate that closed field, which is based on personal acquaintance and trust."

Added to it is the fact that in the course of the past five years, the diamond industry on 47th Street has been in a deep slump, which put many traders into

bankruptcy. "A trader like that," said an investigator, "faces the choice of bankruptcy or making easy, quick and relatively safe money. Not everyone is strong

enough to withstand the temptation."

All of that would not have been of interest to us if not for the massive Israeli and Jewish presence on 47th Street. "At least 50% of the diamond traders there

are Israelis," so an Israeli diamond merchant, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Maariv. "Not a few Israelis also operate in the field of jewels, precious

stones and gold. All of them came to New York to make fast money, conquer the market, get their big break. Not all of them have succeeded, especially not

recently." But the Jewish presence on 47th Street is much greater than that.

Experts in the field estimate that 75% to 80% of the active traders on the street are Jews. A large number of them are very pious Orthodox Jews, mainly

Hassids. There is also a respectable representation of Jews from Iran and Syria, usually also very pious. One can get along fine in Hebrew on 47th Street.

There are many more kosher restaurants in the area than in all of Tel Aviv. The place is also the biggest laundry for drug money in the US.

The expansion of the phenomenon of laundering drug money in the US in general, and on 47th Street in particular, led to the establishment of a special

American task force to combat the phenomenon. The unit is called Eldorado, after the mythical South American city of gold. It is staffed with 200 agents,

officials of the US customs and internal revenue agencies. Eldorado, established in April 1990, investigates the money- laundering in general. Fifty of its

agents dedicate their time just to 47th Street.

"It is work that demands tremendous manpower," said Robert Van Attan, an Eldorado officer, "since the money has to be monitored along the length and

breadth of the continent, sometimes also abroad." The target of the Eldorado agents is money, and money alone. They are not interested in drug imports, drug

deals or drug dealers. "We want to put our hands on the money. To hit their pockets," say members of the unit.

The task is difficult. In America there is no law that prohibits possessing money. On the other hand, when a large amount of cash is found in the possession of

a launderer, the agents confiscate the money. If the person can prove that the source of the money was legitimate, he gets it back. That does not happen.

The launderers are experienced. When one of them is caught and several million dollars are found in his possession, he willingly hands over the money, but

asks for a receipt. "The money is not mine. I want you to confirm that you took it," is the common request. Incidentally, their lives depend on that receipt. It is

not a simple matter to trail them. The eyes of a typical launderer are glued to his rear-view mirror. He makes sudden stops, moves from one lane to another,

chooses long and twisted routes from one place to another. Eldorado has an answer.

The investigators follow their targets with eight, ten, sometimes twelve vehicles. If necessary they use one or two helicopters. There is also sophisticated

equipment, the wonders of American technology in the fields of tapping, surveillance and code-breaking. In the first two years of its operations, Eldorado

captured $60 million and arrested 120 launderers. Compared to the scope of overall laundering, that is peanuts. "That is not the point," say the Eldorado

agents. "Obviously, it is impossible, with the existing legal restrictions, to put an end to the phenomenon. Our warfare is psychological."

Incidentally, Eldorado is not the only agency combating money-laundering. The DEA, the American Drug Enforcement Agency, and the FBI, also conduct

lively activity in that field. Not always is this activity coordinated.

In recent months the Eldorado agents discovered a new center of operations. It is called The Cocaine Triangle. Its sides are Colombian drug barons,

Israeli-Jewisli money launderers and Jewish-Russian mafiosi. The Colombians funnel the money, the Israelis launder it, the Russian mafiosi (who have recently

overrun New York in droves) provide the security and the muscle. A New York journalist recently told Maariv: "The Israeli Jews are ataining notoriety in the

money- laundering market. You need only look at the list of arrests and the indictments of the past 3-4 years, in order to grasp the enormous scope of Israeli

involvement in this field."

One reason for the growing power of the Jews in the business of laundering drug money is the Law of Return with its easy possibility of escape to Israel. In

May 1993, five members of the Jewish international laundering ring which had worked with the Kali cartel were arrested. The ring was exposed following an

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,