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,
from where it is exported to Milano and used to make jewelry which then legitimately returns to 47th Street. "The funniest thing in this business," say the
investigators, "is that the jewelry comes here under favored import conditions because the gold seemingly originates from Colombia and that state possesses
favored terms of trade with tile US." There are also other methods. Drug money is deposited in the accounts of diamond merchants as though it were their
profits and is later transferred to Colonibia.
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."
