ГУЛаг Палестины

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.

Camp Yereim denies any connection with these checks. On April 7 of this year, Rabbi Abraham Lau, a prominent Hassid from "Magen Abraham" synagogue in Los Angeles was convicted of conspiring to launder drug money. Lau is married to the niece of the Satmar Rebbe, Moshe Teitlebaumi, who wields enormous political influence in New York State.