[Shadow_Group] Fw: Agony of Ectascy

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

AR Action Report Online.

According to a report issued in 2003 by the U.S. State Department, Israel
is at the center of international trafficking in Ecstasy .

Sat., November 13, 2004 Cheshvan 29, 5765


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The agony of the Ecstasy

By Nathan Guttman

The most commonly heard estimate is that Israeli criminals control no
less than 75 percent of the Ecstasy market in the U.S. How did Israel
become a central player in this dubious game?

Washington -- Oded Tuito died on June 20 [2004] at Lutheran Hospital in
New York, a few days after suffering a heart attack in his cell in the
Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. Tuito, 44, was
thought to be one of the major drug dealers in the United States --
although he was never convicted -- and to be the person responsible for
smuggling millions of Ecstasy (MDMA) tablets into that country in the
late 1990s. 

He was the first Israeli to be included on the White House list of "drug
kingpins," which consists of 30 foreigners whom the U.S. administration
views as bearing central responsibility for distributing drugs
originating abroad in the U.S. The "kingpin" category is reserved for
drug traffickers whose scope of activity makes them a threat to the
national security of the U.S., so that a special effort is required to
apprehend them, freeze their assets and stop their activity.

Oded Tuito died innocent, at least according to American law. He was
facing legal proceedings in Brooklyn, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, but
none of them had been completed. Still, Tuito in large measure
personifies the Israelis who are increasingly being targeted by the U.S.
law enforcement authorities as the dominant figures in the transfer of
Ecstasy from European labs, where it is manufactured, to U.S. clubs.

Israelis involved in the Ecstasy trade in the U.S. are scattered around
the country, and according to the authorities are not necessarily
organized in large groups, and certainly not under one criminal umbrella
organization. There is no Israeli mafia that deals in Ecstasy, but
wherever the drug is trafficked on a significant scale, there are sure to
be Israelis in the vicinity. Israelis figure prominently in cases
currently under investigation in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and
Miami -- cities that constitute the primary source of drug consumption at
parties in the U.S.

According to a report issued in 2003 by the U.S. State Department, Israel
is at the center of international trafficking in Ecstasy and Israeli
crime organizations, some of them linked to similar organizations from
Russia, achieved a dominant status in the Ecstasy market in Europe, and
went on to control the drug's distribution in the States. 
"Israeli drug-trafficking organizations are the main source of
distribution of the drug to groups in the U.S, using express mail
services, commercial airlines, and recently also using air cargo
services," the report states. The authorities do not provide official
data on the scope of the Israeli trade in Ecstasy, but the most commonly
heard estimate is that Israeli criminals control no less than 75 percent
of the Ecstasy market in the U.S.

How did Israel become a central player in this dubious game? The
explanation is apparently historical in character. A report of the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) explains, in understated language,
that

"Israeli drug traffickers, perhaps thanks to their long-standing ties in
Antwerp, continue to be the major elements in the transfer of large
shipments of Ecstasy from Belgium [to the United States]."
Underlying this cautious formulation is the assumption that Israeli
mobsters have been operating for years in Belgium, mainly in diamond
smuggling, and that when the country became a source of Ecstasy
production in Europe and Antwerp became the drug's major export hub to
the U.S., Israeli criminals naturally became involved. After all, they
were already there.

The Israeliness of the Ecstasy smugglers is a relative matter.
Law-enforcement sources in the States and Israel emphasized that few
Israelis are involved, and often they can be described as "former
Israelis." Frequently they are young people who left the country of their
own volition and hooked up with the underworld and the drug trade
overseas. Some of them were, in fact, already connected with Israeli
criminal organizations back at home, while others operate without any
connections there. In some cases the struggle over control of the Israeli
crime families has been exported to the drug market in the U.S., though
the Israeli players in the Ecstasy market in America are only loosely
connected to the major criminal organizations back home.

Las Vegas connection
Israel as a country is not a problem in the Ecstasy sphere in the U.S.,
but Israelis as individuals definitely are. The relatively new arena of
the Israeli Ecstasy distributors in the U.S. is Las Vegas. In the past,
the city's casinos and tumultuous nightlife have attracted many groups of
criminals, from pimps to Mafia bosses, but the Israeli presence was not
felt. True, the city still remembers the period more than 50 years ago
when the Jewish bosses of the Mafia, Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, were
in control, but until this year, the Jewish or Israeli presence in the
Las Vegas crime scene was not considered significant.

The change began with the exposure of an Israeli crime syndicate, which
the American media dubbed the "Jerusalem Network" and which, according to
the police, seized control of the Ecstasy market in the city. At the
beginning of this month, Gabriel Ben-Harosh, 39, who is suspected of
being the head of the Jerusalem Network, was extradited from Canada to
the U.S.

Ben-Harosh, along with four other Israelis, is accused of committing a
series of crimes involving extortion and money laundering. However, the
indictment, filed in April, does not cite drug offenses. Law-enforcement
officials in Las Vegas believe that the major source of the network's
income derives from the distribution of Ecstasy to clubs in the city.
According to Sergeant Blake Quackenbush, from the Las Vegas Metropolitan
Police: "A lot of the Ecstasy we see in Las Vegas comes from Israeli
dealers." Apart from the current gang, he notes, a good many Israelis
have been arrested in the city in recent years, most of them in
connection with attempts to smuggle Ecstasy and distribute it to local
clubs.

The investigation against the Israeli gang in Las Vegas lasted 14 months,
and when the indictment was issued last April, it turned out that the
tracks led from Las Vegas via drug and other criminal activity throughout
the U.S., to drug suppliers in Europe and to the group that is considered
one of the largest organized crime gangs in Israel: the Abergil family.
Quite possibly the term "Jerusalem Network" stems from a
misunderstanding, as in Israel the nickname of "Jerusalem Gang" is
actually applied to a different crime family, and the major activity of
the Abergils has not taken place in Jerusalem.

Police and DEA officials in the States believe that Ben-Harosh is the
representative of Yitzhak Abergil in the Las Vegas underworld. Abergil,
who, by order of the Israel Police has lived outside Israel since his
release from prison, is considered the major rival of Ze'ev Rosenstein
(right, wetting his pants, arrested) and a key figure in the Israeli
crime scene. The police maintain that Ben-Harosh was responsible for
setting up the network in Las Vegas and for creating a monopoly in that
city's Ecstasy market.

Abergil's man
In addition to keeping Ben-Harosh under surveillance, Las Vegas
detectives spent considerable time tracking another suspect, Hai Waknine,
32, who is believed to be Ben-Harosh's deputy and is also wanted in the
city. The investigation found that Waknine, who resides in Los Angeles
most of the time, went on high-rolling trips to Las Vegas, dropping
thousands of dollars at casinos. Wiretapping of Waknine's phones turned
up the fact that he spoke constantly with Ben-Harosh, who was in Spain at
the time, and that he laundered drug money for him. The other aspects
cited in the Las Vegas indictment are Assaf Waknine (Hai's brother),
Yoram El-Al and Sasson Barashy.

According to reports in the Las Vegas media, the Israeli mobsters in the
city succeeded in forging ties with a number of owners of local clubs
where large quantities of Ecstasy are consumed, and in ensuring an
Israeli monopoly on local distribution of the drug. The Israeli network
indeed controls the Ecstasy market, say the police and the DEA, but it
also engages in other activity -- notably extortion and the protection
racket.
The local descriptions of the Israeli group are hardly flattering. Its
members are said to be flashy, not especially careful (during the lengthy
surveillance of the group, police discovered that most of the suspects
attended a lavish Passover Seder at one of the most expensive hotels in
the city), and not deterred by the use of violence or threats of violence
to get what they want.

 

 GABRIEL Ben-Harosh was arrested in Canada at the request of the U.S.
authorities and held in custody for several months in Toronto before
being extradited -- with his full consent, according to his lawyer -- to
Las Vegas. The lawyer, David Chesnoff, says his client requested to go to
the U.S. to prove his innocence. "He is looking forward to his day in
court," Chesnoff says, adding that Ben-Harosh "does not know anything
about any `Jerusalem Network' and about any allegations [against him]."

Chesnoff, a prominent lawyer who was part of the team that defended
Martha Stewart, adds: "I met with him in Canada and he told me he is 100
percent innocent. I believe he will be acquitted."

At this stage it's not clear what the probe into "an Israeli organized
crime syndicate," as it is called in the indictment, will turn up. The
charges, as stated, don't yet include drug-related clauses. Meanwhile,
the prestigious lawyers involved promise a lengthy judicial process. A
source in the Las Vegas police said one of the results could be a
decision by the Israeli mob to leave town, if they feel that the police
are hot on their heels. On the other hand, the large profits and the
Israelis' absolute control of the Las Vegas Ecstasy market make this
unlikely.

Be that as it may, the information uncovered by the law-enforcement
authorities about the activities of Israeli criminals in Las Vegas sheds
light on the scope of the phenomenon today -- ties with organized crime
in Israel, various centers in Europe and across the U.S., and criminal
activity that combines classic Mafia deeds with niche operations
involving trafficking in Ecstasy.

The indictments in Las Vegas are perhaps the most recent and most
detailed, but they are certainly not the only ones concerning Israeli
involvement in the distribution of Ecstasy in the U.S. The list is long
and extends from coast to coast: two Israelis in their twenties who were
arrested with a million Ecstasy tablets in their possession in New York
in the summer of 2001; two others who were picked up when they received a
Fed Ex package containing 200 kilos of Ecstasy tablets; three residents
of the city of Givatayim, adjacent to Tel Aviv, who were extradited to
the U.S. last year after a shipment containing 500,000 tablets that they
sent to Brooklyn was seized by the authorities, a few years after they
were extradited to south Florida after a scheme to smuggle drugs into
Miami was exposed; and many others.

Along with the small fry, some Israelis in the top ranks of the Ecstasy
business have also been arrested -- notably Jacob "Cookie" Orgad, who
controlled the market in Los Angeles, and Ilan Zarger, who was the
Ecstasy supplier to the well-known Mafia figure Salvatore (Sammy the
Bull) Gravano, from the Gambino crime family.

Mistakenly released
Two classes of players can be distinguished among Israelis involved in
the Ecstasy scene: the directors of the networks, who usually also have
connections to crime organizations in Israel and come from the
underworld, and the couriers, who are responsible for getting the drugs
from Europe to the States. The couriers are recruited in Europe or the
U.S. in return for the promise of big profits and for the most part carry
out similar missions many times.

The numerous charges against the late Oded Tuito cast some light on how
the Israeli networks operate. Tuito was suspected of having ties with
Ecstasy suppliers in Europe and of being a major recruiter of couriers in
the U.S., who were carrying millions of tablets into the country from
Europe. The prosecution alleged that Tuito developed a fondness for strip
joints in New York during his visits to the U.S. and hired strippers to
fly to Europe in return for a payment of $10,000 to bring back suitcases
filled with tens of thousands of tablets. The luggage the women took with
them to Europe contained tens of thousands of dollars in cash -- Tuito's
earnings from previous drug deals.

In addition to the strippers, Tuito also made use of young ultra-Orthodox
Jews, whom he recruited by word of mouth in New York yeshivas. He
believed -- and rightly so, as it turned out -- that the U.S. authorities
would not suspect yeshiva students dressed in the traditional black garb
and therefore would not check their luggage at the airport in New York. 
Hundreds of thousands of Ecstasy pills reached the U.S. this way. Later
he also started to recruit elderly ultra-Orthodox, again in return for
thousands of dollars per delivery.

Tuito was initially detained in France, but was released by mistake and
got to Spain, from where he was extradited to the U.S. after a years-long
legal battle. In testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives
Appropriations Committee last March, DEA administrator Karen Tandy stated
that Tuito "was known as the world's largest trafficker of MDMA
[Ecstasy]." Tuito, she added, was responsible for the importation of over
7 million tablets of MDMA into the U.S. during his period of activity.
The investigation against him completely "dismantled Tuito's MDMA
trafficking organization and seriously impacted the ability of Israeli
organized crime groups to distribute MDMA into domestic consumer
markets," she stated in her testimony.

Alexi Schacht, Tuito's lawyer, believes that the description of his
client's exploits in the Ecstasy market was greatly exaggerated.

"The government behaved as if Ecstasy is the same as cocaine and heroin,
as if he is one CEO that runs the operation, but it doesn't work that
way. With Ecstasy, people buy and sell to everyone."
Schacht adds that it was unreasonable to place his client on the "drug
kingpins" list. One way or another, the lawyer maintains, the effect of
the arrest and lengthy incarceration of Oded Tuito -- who was known to
investigators as "Fat Man" -- on the trafficking of in Ecstasy in the
U.S. was no more than marginal, as most of the activity attributed to him
took place years ago and he had been out of the game since being arrested
in France and Spain. "He was a very nice and friendly man, he spoke
several languages and even though he had no formal education, he was very
smart," Schacht says, summing up his opinion of the person who was called
the world's greatest trafficker in Ecstasy.

The new Israelis who are active in the Ecstasy market in the States are
different from Tuito, not only in the scale of their trafficking but also
in their methods of operation. When Ecstasy came onto the drug market it
was a new phenomenon. It was manufactured in the underground and
penetration of it in the U.S. required mainly thought, boldness and a
great deal of money. In recent years the picture has changed: The federal
authorities in the U.S. have greatly stiffened the punishment for
trafficking in Ecstasy so that in practice, it is now comparable to the
punishment stipulated for dealers of addictive hard drugs. As a result,
the Ecstasy industry has passed into the hands of the organized crime
bosses, who are willing to take the risk and who have the connections and
the wherewithal to cope with the hard hand of the law-enforcement
agencies.

However, this situation, too, is thought to be on the brink of change.
Whereas in the past decade Europe was the principal source for the
Ecstasy supply in the States, and Israeli traffickers dominated the
trans-Atlantic lines of shipment, more recently there has been an
increase in the manufacture of Ecstasy in Latin America. If the major
source of the drug's supply shifts southward, it's unlikely that the
Israeli mobsters will succeed in maintaining their control of the market.
The reasons: the mechanism for smuggling drugs from Central and South
America into the U.S. has operated for years without Israeli involvement;
and it will be difficult to keep up a competitive price in European
Ecstasy in the face of the goods that will arrive from south of the
border.


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