July 2002
IKE
SEAMANS
The two Israelis were whisked through Customs and immigration when they arrived at Newark International Airport recently and immediately taken to their Miami flight. After landing here, they were escorted to a chauffeur driven limousine. The Israelis aren't VIPs. They're alleged criminals and were taken directly to jail to await trial.
In an unprecedented extradition, Meir Ben David and Yosef Levi — Israeli citizens, but also residents of Broward County were returned after being pursued by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Attorney. They're accused of being major members of an Israeli organized crime syndicate that smuggles massive quantities of the drug "Ecstasy" into South Florida. When he was arrested on cocaine charges by Broward undercover cops in1993- Ben David claimed he was unemployed despite owning a mansion in Fort Lauderdale valued at 1.8 million.
Israeli mobsters are all over this area. "Since the late 1970s, Miami has been a focus for Israeli organized crime," Fordham law professor and Israeli crime expert Abraham -Abramovsky tells me. "It's easier for a criminal to melt into a population where Israelis already reside. That's Miami."
In an exhaustive investigation, the Herald's David Kidwell discovered Israeli criminals here are involved with drug smuggling, robber, jewel theft, money laundering and fraud.
ABRAMOVSKY MALMAN
They've outdone themselves with Ecstasy making Miami one of their main smuggling centers — along with New York and Los Angeles -- while cornering the market, distributing 75 percent of the potent pills that flood the country. One Israeli even supplied Sammy "The-Bull" Gravano, former Mafia enforcer and Ecstasy dealer in Arizona.
Strippers, old men and Hasidic Jews have been used as couriers who smuggle the drug from Amsterdam, where it's manufactured, and where there's a large Israeli emigre population. Chemists were even brought from Israel to supervise production. "They got in on the ground floor of Ecstasy distribution because they had significant ties in the Netherlands," says Hollywood attorney Myles Malman, a former federal prosecutor. "The routes formerly used for smuggling diamonds were taken over by Israeli criminals and replaced with Ecstasy."
A tablet which sells for $2O-$40 in South Florida nightclubs can cost as little as 50 cents to make in Amsterdam. Profits are so huge, the Ecstasy trade has given Israeli criminals a fearsome reputation for "heavy muscle" on par with the famously vicious Russian gangsters. "I believe they are sometimes meaner says Abramovsky. There have been several murders or assassinations of South Floridians believed to be connected to Israeli organized crime."
The DEA, Justice Department and local law enforcement apply the heat and have made significant arrests. When it gets too hot, Israeli gangsters have high tailed it home because Israel's unyielding extradition law protected them. Until it was amended in 1999 under pressure from the United States, no citizen was extradited regardless of the crime. Ben David and Levi are believed to be the first alleged drug dealers and organized crime figures to be extradited since the law was changed. "This is a significant event in drug prosecutions in South Florida and nationwide," says Malman. It's the first time any Israeli has been extradited to the Southern District of Florida for anything."
Abramovsky says Israel had to get tough. "Criminals give the country a bad name. It doesn't want to be known for harboring them even if they are citizens. This shows Israel is not interested in protecting criminals any longer."
I talked to the prosecutor in Jerusalem who handled the Ben David-Levi extradition. He told me they're just the first. He's received "numerous" requests to return Israelis accused of crimes in this country. Many of those requests have come from South Florida.
• Ike Seamans is senior correspondent for NBC 6 and former NBC News Israel bureau chief. E-mail him at: Ike.Seamans@nbc.com.
Mid-Trial Offer of Probation for Client
