Pubdate: Sat, 13 Nov 2004
Source: Ha'aretz (Israel)
Copyright: 2004 Ha'aretz Daily Newspaper Ltd.
Contact:  http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/807
Author: Nathan Guttman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy)

THE AGONY OF THE ECSTASY

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 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 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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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake