Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Gabriel Ben Harosh - Informant Info
Gabi Ben Harosh, head of the Jerusalem gang, has come a long way since bare handedly strangling his opponents, sitting in prison for 12 years, escaping to America with millions from the Trade Bank and signing a plea bargain there. He told his investigators how he traveled, hunted, around the world – from Mexico to Morocco, from Spain to Miami, losing a fortune at casinos, only to cash in the tokens and launder the money. Will he testify against the Israeli crime bosses, as he promised to?
Until 11:00 on June 13 2006, nobody believed that Gabi Ben Harosh has indeed “turned”, as they call it in criminal slang. But then, Prosecutor Thomas Slazenger asked the judge to call the main prosecution witness to the stand. It was quiet in the hall and dozens of eyes followed the bearded man wearing a kippa behind the stand. “Gabriel Ben Harosh, Government’s witness, testifying under oath”, the bailiff chanted monotonously. Another institution of Israeli crime scene was destroyed.
Ben Harosh is an honorary member of the pantheon of Israeli crime. He was identified as the head of the Jerusalem gang, convicted of killing two of his opponents, spent almost one third of his behind bars, considered a main suspect - after Etti Alon and Ofer Maximov - in the Trade Bank case and, allegedly, managed to escape Israel with millions of the Bank’s money.
Four and a half years have gone by since the greatest embezzlement ever to occur in Israel reached the headlines – the Trade Bank case. Deputy Manager of the Bank’s investment department, Etti Alon, and her brother, Ofer Maximov, a compulsive gambler, emptied the bank, within a short period of time, of no less that 250M NIS, leading to its collapse. The confession by the brother and sister indeed made it easier for the legal authorities in Israel to arrest most of the people involved, but the police failed in its attempt to restore the money.
Since the case was uncovered in 2002 and until today, one main link remained without explanation. Gabi Ben Harosh, the man who, based on testimony of the main parties, received hundreds of bank checks totaling millions of dollars in return for loans granted to Maximov, succeeded in eluding the police at the last minute and all of its attempts to bring him back to Israel and convict him, have failed. Where the Israeli police failed, the American Federal agencies succeeded.
In 2004, the American prosecution authorities filed a 40 page indictment comprised of 48 counts against Ben Harosh and three other Israelis, who helped him, according to the prosecution, smuggle and launder the Trade Bank money in the U.S. The three were Ben Harosh’ business partners in gray market lending: contractor Sasson Barashi; criminal Yoram El Al and American businessman of Israeli origin, Hai Waknine. El Al managed to escape to South America and has not been traced since then. Barashi was arrested immediately upon his return to Israel, tried for his part in the Trade Bank case, convicted and imprisoned for 14 months. Thus, the Americans continued to hold only two defendants: Waknine and Ben Harosh.
The hierarchy in the gang was clear, so the Americans believed. “Defendant Gabi Ben Harosh”, the original indictment read, “is the head of the Jerusalem gang. Upon his order, the other members of the gang performed illegal activities relating to the group’s interests… Waknine, Barashi and El Al, under his instruction, collected debts in the United States and intimidated the debtors”.
One morning, in early March 2006, Waknine and his lawyers were surprised to be stranded in the field. Ben Harosh’s name was deleted from the indictment. On the morning of July 13th, they understood that Ben Harosh had indeed switched sides.
“Mr. Ben Harosh”, the American judge turned to him in the opening to his testimony, “were you originally a defendant in this trial yourself?”
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: Did you sign the plea bargain of your own good and free will?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: What count did you confess to?
Ben Harosh: “I confessed to arriving here in April 2002 together with Sasson Barashi and receiving money from him on the way. $35,000. I met Mr. Waknine in Miami. He took the money from me to keep it for me.”
Judge: When bringing the money into the United States, did you know that it was generated from illegal activities?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: And you brought the money into the United States in order to conceal its source?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: Did the money originate from an act of theft performed by an employee in breach of Israeli law?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: Do you know that the penalty expected for you for the charge to which you confessed is 20 years in prison?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: As part of your plea bargain, did you agree to cooperate with the government?
Ben Harosh: “I agreed to come and tell the whole truth”.
Ben Harosh’s testimonies – those given to the American authorities in court and those given under a strict suppression order and exposed here for the first time – provide a firsthand illustration of the Katamon King’s escape route. In between, we learn of the intense American effort toward capturing the heads of Israeli organized crime, who they perceive to be a true danger to the welfare of American society, greatly due to the involvement of Israeli gangs in smuggling drugs into the United States. For the Americans, Ben Harosh is just a cog in this war.
Difficult Childhood
Gabi Ben Harosh was born in Morocco in 1959. When he was two years old, his family immigrated to Israel. Even before reaching the age of eighteen, he ascended to a senior position in the Katamon Gang. Young Ben Harosh accumulated a rich record of arrests and criminal convictions for property offenses, robbery, and eight counts of violence, possession of drugs, fraud and forgery.
The hard drugs, heroin and cocaine, began penetrating Jerusalem in the late 70’s. In an attempt to gain control over the local drug market, the gang headed by Micha Aslan and Ben Harosh did not spare any measures, including hits, shootouts and use of explosives. In 1980, against the backdrop of a gang war, Ben Harosh and Aslan murdered David Hayu and Shimon Sabach, going on to hide their bodies. As part of a plea bargain, Ben Harosh confessed to strangling the two to death with his bear hands. He and Aslan were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Upon his conviction, Ben Harosh was already in prison after being convicted of drug offenses, theft and assaulting a police officer a few months earlier, leading to a sentence of four years in prison.
Ben Harosh is considered to be a charismatic, intelligent and especially impressive criminal. During his time in prison, he completed his high school, education through the Open University, and even began studying psychology. In 1986, he got married while still in prison. In 1994, after serving 2/3 of his sentence, Ben Harosh was released for good behavior. Based on the Release Board documents available to “Ha’Aretz”, a serious dispute developed between the Prison Service intelligence personnel, who adamantly opposed the early release, and between the commanders of the various prisons where Ben Harosh was imprisoned.
“We were presented with different and contradictory opinions”, wrote the head of the Release Board, Justice Shmuel Quart. “The opinion submitted by the commander of the Ayalon Prison, dated 3.3.93, stated that Ben Harosh’s conduct was positive and that he studied at the educational center, worked daily as the inmate in charge of the prison steam system and was even active in editing the prisoner bulletin. However, the representative of the Prison Service legal advisor declared, in our first meeting, that she considers the commander’s opinion to reflect the “collective fear of all wardens when addressing dangerous prisoners of this sort”.
Among those who supported Ben Harosh’s early release was Labor party member, Yoram Marziano, currently a Knesset Member and faction Chairman, who is also a childhood friend of another criminal, defined by the police as its number 1 target, Itzhak Aberjil. “I have been accompanying the prisoner’s family for four years now”, Marziano wrote to the Release Board, “and I express my confidence in the prisoner’s honest desire to rehabilitate himself and I undertake to accompany him in his first steps after release”.
Immediately following his early release, Ben Harosh appeared on Ilana Dayan’s investigative program on television, declaring that he has left the world of crime behind and that he will never return to prison. In his new incarnation, he introduced himself as a business person. In 1996, he established Amir Elad Ltd. Four years later, he established “Namir Construction and Renovation Ltd.”. The two companies were involved in construction and real estate entrepreneurship. The words from the General Manager, appearing on the front of his companies’ marketing brochure, Ben Harosh wrote: “I established the companies through great efforts, expressed in reliability, responsibility and adherence to timetables, all without initial equity… I hope that the future years will prove the strength and uncompromising quality that characterize my professional endeavors and that we will continue to flourish in the future, as we have in the past”.
And indeed, within a few years, Ben Harosh’s two companies developed into leaders in the Jerusalem real estate market. A report from Sassover Accounting demonstrates that, between 1997-2002, the two companies managed projects of approximately 150M NIS, which generated for Ben Harosh, a profit of about 11M NIS.
Ten years after beginning his business journey, on 30 January 2006, Ben Harosh will tell the American agents, for the first time, that alongside the legal activities of these companies, their bank accounts served as a channel for laundering millions from the Trade Bank, given to him by Etti Alon and her brother, Ofer Maximov.
The contact between Ben Harosh and Maximov began after Ben Harosh was unfulfilled with the construction business only and went on to operate in the gray market. In September 2001, together with his friend from the Jerusalem gang, Micha Aslan, and the Jerusalem based contractor, Sasson Barashi, Ben Harosh established a check cashing and grey market lending company. “Ben Harosh declared that Barashi served as the general manager of the company and managed its business, and that he, himself, provided financial backing”, thus appearing in the American report compiled to summarize his testimony.
“Ben Harosh”, according to the report, “stated that their biggest customer was Ofer Maximov. Maximov gave Barashi checks and Barashi replaced them with cash. Later, Maximov would return the money to Barashi for a commission. If Maximov was out of town, his sister Etti Alon or their father, Avigdor Maximov, would pay Barashi in his place. Ben Harosh stated that Barashi used to deposit some of the money stolen from the Trade Bank into Ben Harosh’s business and private accounts… some of the money taken from the Trade Bank… integrated and combined with other money derived from his legitimate activities”.
In another interview on “Uvda”, Ilana Dayan confronted Ben Harosh with Israel Police intelligence by which Ben Harosh met with Israeli crime bosses, including Itzhak Aberjil, and undertook to take on Ofer Maximov’s debts. At this stage, Ben Harosh denied any connection to the Trade Bank case and refuse to discuss the said summit meeting.
Ben Harosh’s American investigators received similar information. “Ofer Maximov was a heavy gambler who accumulated millions of dollars in debt to a large group of people”, testified Diane Ritter, special DEA agent who conducted the investigation when the Americans suspected that the millions smuggled into the United States, originated from drug deals. “The investigative material received from the Israel police, including hidden tape recordings of the Jerusalem group, Itzhak Bar Mucha and Yossi Malka were heard talking about how Gabi Ben Harosh took over all of Maximov’s debts. Malka told Bar Mucha that Ben Harosh told them that they have to protect Maximov so they “don’t lose”.
Maximov became a goose laying golden eggs for the Jerusalem gang. Ben Harosh and his men accompanied him personally to the casinos in Israel and around the world, allowed him to increase his debt and made sure to collect it, together with a high commission, from him or his father and sister. In the meantime, the Trade Bank accounts continued to empty. None of the people involved in the party realized how close everything was to exploding.
The Great Escape
Four months after establishing his loan company, in December 2001, Gabi Ben Harosh traveled to Las Vegas and stayed at the famous Bellagiio Hotel for three days. He met Hai Waknine on that trip. The click between them was instant. Waknine, now 34 years old, was born in Be’er Sheva. When he was four, his family moved to Los Angeles. His brother, Assaf Waknine was Robert Ben Shoshan’s partner in the “Roberto” modeling agency.
As early as high school, Waknine demonstrated keen business skills. After generating an initial fortune from buying and selling used cars, he began leading an extravagant lifestyle that attracted the attention of the local legal authorities. In 1989, in tenth grade, he and two other students were arrested after assaulting a youngster who walked around the school yard yelling racist comments against Jews and Negroes. The youngster was taken to the hospital in severe condition. The three youths stayed out of prison thanks to their age, but they were expelled from school.
Hal Arthur, a teacher at the school, was murdered a few weeks later. His body was found in front of his home with three bullets in his head. The Los Angeles police investigated all of the students who had a criminal record, including Hai Waknine. He was released after six hours of investigations, but his full name appeared in one of the local newspapers on the next day. At the time, Waknine, who was a minor, sued the Los Angeles Police Department and the newspaper for $10M. After a long legal battle that went on for seven years, Waknine won a huge sum of money in a settlement. The teacher’s murderer, by the way, was caught six years later.
Waknine entered the jewelry and real estate business in his early twenties, purchased a number of fashionable night clubs in Los Angeles and befriended popular figures from the Hollywood entertainment scene. At a certain point, he became friends with the Israel musician Moshe Noy of the “Shagririm” and together, they organized large scale events for the Israeli and Jewish community. In the mid 1990’s, he purchased the building housing the Los Angeles diamond exchange as well as a line of other expensive properties. In addition, he established a diamond transport company that is considered to be the largest in its field on the West Coast, as well as a limosine rental company. Alongside his commercial properties, Waknine also owns a villa in Marina Del Rey in Los Angeles and a penthouse apartment on the Acapulco beach in Mexico. Real estate experts have estimated the value of his properties at about $30M.
Waknine became involved in another criminal case in 1996. This time, he was arrested by the Los Angeles Police as a suspect involved in blackmailing, threatening and kidnapping a diamond dealer called Chermansky, and holding him hostage in an apartment that Waknine rented for one of his limosine company chauffeurs. Waknine remained silent during his interrogation and after a trial that went on for three weeks; he and his driver were cleared for lack of evidence.
Ten years later, in 2006, Yehuda Ben Attar, or “Judy” as his friends called him, also born in the Katamon neighborhood and a member of the Jerusalem gang, took the witness stand in Waknine’s trial and told the court that Waknine was his partner in the blackmail and abduction of Chermansky. A year earlier, Ben Attar was sentenced to 20 years in prison for trading in Ecstasy. In court, he explained that in return for his testimony against Waknine, he is hoping to receive a lighter sentence.
In 1999, Waknine found himself involved in a case that ended in murder. He was asked to serve as an arbitrator in a business conflict that arose between Jonathan Abrams and Eli Dromi, two American-Israeli businesspeople. Abrams decided to submit the issue to an arbitrator. “When Dromi discovered that Waknine is the arbitrator, he got very scared because of his reputation within the Israeli community”, testified DEA agent Ritter, who interrogated the two business people in relation to the said case. “In his interrogation, Dromi told me that he wanted a criminal element on his side, who could help him stand up to Waknine. An Israeli friend recommended another Israeli residing in Los Angeles, Alon Giladi. Giladi, Dromi and Waknine met at the “Haifa” restaurant on Pekoe Boulevard in Los Angeles on 29 November 1999. At that meeting, Giladi informed Dromi that he agrees with Waknine and that he must pay his debt of $306K”.
Four days after the arbitration meeting, Alon Giladi’s body was found in the trunk of a car on the shoulder of a Los Angeles highway. “The investigation found that he was murdered on November 29th, a short time after the meeting at ‘Haifa’”, testified the agent. A short time after discovering Giladi’s body, the Los Angeles police arrested Ben Cohen and Nathan Hannan. The two were tried, convicted and, under a plea bargain, recently released.
Since his trial began, the American media has often described Waknine as the American arm of the Jerusalem gang in the United States. “The Jerusalem network is a violent gang that was established by members of Israeli crime families”, says the original indictment submitted against the four Israelis in July 2003. “The group is involved with grey market loans, blackmail, money laundering and illegal gambling in California, Nevada and Florida, and other locations in the United States, Europe and Israel, and it operates toward increasing its power through illegal activities in other parts of the world. The network has gained a great deal of influence in the United States by developing connections with criminal factors, legitimate business people and Israeli born businesspeople in California, Florida and Nevada. Some were even blackmailed by the group themselves”.
The hierarchy between Ben Harosh and Waknine is confusing. On the one hand, Ben Harosh was defined as the head of the Jerusalem gang while Waknine was defined its executive branch. On the other hand, Ben Harosh is the one who eventually signed a plea bargain and came out with a very light punishment, while Waknine has become the main defendant in the American case. Beyond that, the power relations deteriorated when Ben Harosh was forced to flee Israel with the discovery of the Trade Bank case, and Waknine became his host and lifeboat.
Condensed timetable: In February 2002, Ben Harosh accepted Waknine’s invitation and went to spend Valentine’s Day, together with his wife, in Waknine’s luxurious penthouse in Acapulco. “Ben Harosh said that, during this vacation, he received a fax from Israel, telling him that a new law was passed in Israel the day before, rendering the grey market illegal”, states the investigation report.
One month later, in March 2002, the Ben Harosh couple returned to the United States once again, this time for a Passover meal that Waknine organized for his family and friends at the royal suite of the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. “Ben Harosh said that he brought with him $100-120K in cash”. On the eve of his return to Israel, Ben Harosh told Waknine that he is considering moving to the United States with his family and becoming involved in local businesses. Waknine took Ben Harosh around Los Angeles, showing him various buildings and properties that he owned, and introduced him to some of his business partners.
April 2002 started as a routine month for Ben Harosh and his partners. They continued to lend Maximov money at high commissions and the Holon greengrocer continued to burn up millions of dollars in casinos around the world. Ben Harosh traveled to Bucharest, Romania, on April 23rd, stayed at the Marriott Hotel and met with Maximov on his first evening at the casino. Ben Harosh told his American investigators that that was the last time he met Ofer Maximov. Taken from the investigation protocol:
What did you and Maximov talk about at that meeting in Romania?
“I asked him about the balance of the money that he still owed us”.
How much did Maximov owe you at the time?
“About 7-8M NIS, approximately $1.6M”.
Who else was with you on that trip to Romania?
“A guy named Shlomi Oz and another guy named Yossi Malka”.
Do you know any other people that Maximov owed money to?
“I know some of them. I know Benny Ravizada, Yossi Malka, Itzik Bar Mucha”.
Who is Benny Ravizada?
“Benny Ravizada is the “Bank of America” in the Israeli grey market”.
Two days after his return to Israel, at noon on April 27 2002, Etti Alon, Maximov’s sister and head of the Trade Bank credit department, entered a police station and confessed to the embezzlement. That same evening, while Etti Alon’s interrogators continued to fill in page after page of testimony, Sasson Barashi called his partner, Ben Harosh, asking for an urgent meeting. “I understood from him that we are in trouble and that it would be wise to leave Israel immediately”, Ben Harosh told his American investigators.
At that time, how much of the money that Barashi gave you remained in your accounts?
“3.2M NIS, which were approximately $750K. It was Friday… I withdrew the entire amount with four bank checks of 800K NIS, written out to Sasson. Sasson went on to give those checks to Micha Aslan in order to cash them. I said goodbye to him and, on the night between April 27th and 28th, 2002, I left Israel”.
From the bank, Ben Harosh drove directly to the Ben Gurion Airport and from there went on to Brussels. In the Belgian capital, he hired a taxi to take him to Amsterdam. Barashi arrived on a later flight and crossed the border to Holland in a rented car. The two stayed at the Grand Kresnopolsky Hotel. According to the investigation report, “Ben Harosh said that Barashi gave him $40K in cash from the Trade Bank money”.
What did you and Barashi decide to do at that stage?
“I called Mr. Waknine and asked him if he had heard of what happened in Israel. He said yes and suggested that I meet him in Miami, where he was staying at the time. He said that the best place to be in, in light of the situation, is the United States. He said that he would be waiting for us and that he already reserved rooms for us”.
What about the money?
Ben Harosh and Barashi accepted Waknine’s suggestion and flew to Miami on the next day. Based on the report summarizing Ben Harosh’s testimony: “Ben Harosh said that upon arrival in Miami, Waknine took the cash that they had, explaining that it is too dangerous for them to carry such amounts around in the event that they are arrested. Ben Harosh said that he gave Waknine money through different channels in order for him to launder it in the United States and keep it for him. He mentioned that he was under severe pressure to get all of his money out of Israel before the police confiscates it”. Ben Harosh said that he transferred all of his money form Israel to the United States and that Waknine is helping him find ways “to invest” (quotes appear in the original” the money in order to hide it even deeper from the police”.
Following is a description provided by American federal agents on the methods employed by the head of the Jerusalem gang for laundering the money from the bank: “Ben Harosh said that, in Las Vegas, he and Barashi went into the casino of the Paris Hotel, where Barashi kept an account. Barashi wrote out checks to his name, amounting to $140-160K… Ben Harosh cashed the checks into tokens and began gambling. After losing $20-30K, he converted the tokens into cash at the casino … Ben Harosh said that he and Barashi gave their cash, over $220K, to Hai Waknine for safekeeping”.
Ben Harosh found another way to launder money in Miami. During his previous visit, Ben Harosh met with two other Israelis living in the United States – Eli Haddad and Yossef Attia. Ritter: “Haddad and Attia proposed that they invest in their venture in Florida. Attia and Ben Harosh first met when Ben Harosh was serving 18 years in prison for manslaughter and he shared a cell with Itzhak Aberjil. In 1993, Attia moved to Germany, where he was arrested for importing cocaine and served five years in prison. He returned to Israel in 1998, where he met Aberjil once again. That year, he was sent to Panama to arrange a shipment of 50 kg of cocaine to Israel, using the money given to him by an Israeli citizen called Danny Martinez. Attia told me that Meir Aberjil, Itzhak’s brother, and Martinez were business partner. Attia said that the money given to him to buy the cocaine was stolen by a local operator who served as a mediator in the transaction”.
In May, in the midst of the escape and laundering spree, Haddad and Attia asked Ben Harosh for a $520K loan in order to promote their business venture in Panama. The loan was disbursed in three installments. The day after Ben Harosh transferred the third installment to Attia’s people in Israel, agent Ritter said, “Waknine and Ben Harosh contacted Attia and Haddad, and asked to meet them in an apartment that Waknine rented in Miami. In his interrogation, Attia told me that the apartment was on the eighth floor of a residential building. Ben Harosh went out on the balcony with him and told him that he wanted his money back the next morning, or else he would kill him”. The threats worked and the two indeed returned the money to Ben Harosh. They later testified about the entire case in Waknine’s trial.
Ben Harosh invested another million dollars of the Trade Bank money in a luxurious car dealership in Los Angeles that offered models of Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Mercedes. Waknine himself was one of the owners of the dealership. During 2003, when Ben Harosh tried to find refuge in Spain, Waknine sent him a luxurious Mercedes Jeep.
Going on from Miami, Ben Harosh arrived in Los Angeles to continue laundering the money. “Ben Harosh told me that Waknine took him to the owner of a jewelry store and gave him a check for $150K and a personal check for $85K withdrawn from the newly established account for Amir Elad in Miami. He said that, using the money, they purchased a purple diamond and that Waknine told him that “their half” of the diamond is worth $235K.
Ben Harosh grew more and more dependent upon Waknine. Based on the testimony summary report: “Ben Harosh said that he gave Waknine the money because he could not give it to any of his other friends, since the police knew of their identity and was following them. According to him, Waknine was a new friend that that police was unaware of”.
An Electronic Ankle Cuff
For four months, during which he was declared a fugitive criminal and wanted for investigation, Ben Harosh traveled between Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas and Mexico, trying to decide on his next steps. He returned to Los Angeles on August 1st 2002 to meet his wife and family at the international airport upon their arrival from Israel. When Ben Harosh was requested to explain to the INS agents why he stated on his application that he does not have a criminal record, he escaped the airport, leaving the INS with his passport, his wife and his family. While his wife and family were under surveillance, Gabi Ben Harosh managed to escape back to Mexico. It was only on August 28th, after extended negotiations, that the family was permitted to return to Israel.
On June 28th, while Ben Harosh was still roving between Spain, Morocco and Mexico for fear of being caught, he learned that his friend and partner at the top of the Jerusalem gang, Micha Aslan, was murdered in Eilat. An assassin waited for him when leaving a business meeting and shot him in the back with five bullets at point blank range. Shocked by the murder and exhausted by a year of escaping, Ben Harosh decided to go to Canada. He considered staying there permanently, but the Americans had different plans.
Exactly two years after escaping from Israel, on April 26, 2004, a federal judge signed an arrest warrant against “the Israeli gang”: Gabi Ben Harosh, Hai Waknine, Yoram El Al, Sasson Barashi and another American citizen of Vietnamese descent. El Al managed to flee from the United States. Barashi was already under arrest in Israel for the abduction of Ofer Maximov and his involvement in the Trade Bank case. Waknine was arrested early in the morning at his home in Los Angeles. Ben Harosh was arrested in Canada a few hours later. Upon searching Waknine’s home, the FBI confiscated, among other things, dozens of pictures of him together with Ben Harosh at various events.
The two defendants were brought before an arresting judge. Only after depositing personal bail of $3M for each of them, they were released to house arrest until their trial, with an electronic cuff around their ankle. During the two years since then, the defense teams hired by the two, operated with a cooperative effort toward getting them both exonerated of the severe indictment.
David Kenner, Waknine’s attorney, received a phone call from a journalist on January 14th, 2006, telling him that Ben Harosh fired his attorney, David Chesnoff, a few hours earlier and instead, hired attorney Kiene Sloane Heller. Kenner, one of the leading criminal attorneys in the United States, immediately understood what this meant: Chesnoff is known as an attorney who refuses to represent clients who have signed a plea bargain with the prosecution, Sloane Heller is less picky.
On January 30th, Gabi Ben Harosh and his new attorney walked into the DEA building in Los Angeles for a confidential meeting with two people from the district attorney’s office, Thomas Slazenger and Patrick McLaughlin, as well as agents from the DEA. The objective of the meeting was to examine the possibility of reaching a settlement, but the Americans first wanted to hear what Ben Harosh had to offer.
In an 11-page document, under the heading “Highly Sensitive Information”, some of which is cited in this article, Ben Harosh related the particulars of his involvement in the Trade Bank case, step after step, and the methods in which he attempted to launder the embezzled funds. He told his investigators that he estimates to have given Hai Waknine and his brother, Assaf Waknine, approximately $3.7M, which were withdrawn from his accounts in Israel and for them to invest them for him in the United States.
Gabi Ben Harosh signed a plea bargain with the American Justice Department on February 20th. In a 22-page document, he undertook toward the American government that, in return for his testimony against Hai Waknine, the Americans will disregard the millions that he smuggled in from Israel and will decrease his indictment to one count only – bringing $35K of the Trade Bank money into the United States. In addition, they undertook to lower the penalty from 20 years in prison to only two years.
An examination of the legal document exposes that the testimony against Waknine was only part of the greater scheme that the United States devised for Ben Harosh. In Article 15 of the plea bargain, Ben Harosh also undertook to “fully cooperate with the American Justice Department, Drug Enforcement Agency, Internal Revenue Service and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in accordance with instructions from the American prosecutor. This cooperation requires the following of the defendant: to provide full and true answers to any questions presented thereto as part of interrogations, or before a jury, or within any other legal proceedings. To appear and participate in all meetings, jury discussions, legal deliberations or any other legal proceedings in which his presence is required by the prosecutor. To obtain, of his own free and good will, any document or other tangible evidence relating to the issues required by the prosecutor or anyone on his behalf. If the defendant lies or fails to meet his commitments, the plea bargain will be revoked and his admission of guilt will be used as evidence against him”.
On March 2, 2006, Ben Harosh appeared before a federal judge to ratify the plea bargain. When Waknine and his attorneys learned that Ben Harosh would serve as a prosecution witness against them, the understood that they have only a few months in order to undermine his reliability. For three months, between March and May, a team of American private investigators cam to Israel with a very clear order – leave no stones unturned and get all of the information available on Gabi Ben Harosh. The results were not especially impressive. Very few people agreed to share information on the person known as the head of the number one gang.
Hai Waknine’s trial opened at the federal court in Los Angeles on June 13, 2006. The American-Israeli businessman kept hoping, until the last moment, that his friend would change his mind. But once Ben Harosh took the witness stand, Waknine realized that it was all over. A short time after the trial began, Waknine also decided to sign a plea bargain with the Americans. Admission of guilt in return for ten years in prison.
And what about Gabi Ben Harosh? On the one side, he was right when he said that he would never go back to prison. Today, he continues to live in Los Angeles with his family and only 3,000 hours of community service. On the other hand, the plea bargain still requires him to fully cooperate with the American investigative authorities in any case that it is required. Now, he has left to see whether or not he will appear on the witness stand again in other cases currently taking place in the United States, against the heads of Israeli organized crime organizations. If he refuses to testify against them, he has a 20 year sentence dangling over his head.
Judge: And you brought the money into the United States in order to conceal its source?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: Did the money originate from an act of theft performed by an employee in breach of Israeli law?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: Do you know that the penalty expected for you for the charge to which you confessed is 20 years in prison?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: As part of your plea bargain, did you agree to cooperate with the government?
Ben Harosh: “I agreed to come and tell the whole truth”.
Based on the report summarizing Ben Harosh’s testimony: “Ben Harosh said that upon arrival in Miami, Waknine took the cash that they had, explaining that it is too dangerous for them to carry such amounts around in the event that they are arrested.
The hierarchy between Ben Harosh and Waknine is confusing. On the one hand, Ben Harosh was defined as the head of the Jerusalem gang while Waknine was defined its executive branch. On the other hand, Ben Harosh is the one who eventually signed a plea bargain and came out with a very light punishment, while Waknine has become the main defendant in the American case.
Yoram Marziano, currently a Knesset Member and faction Chairman, who is also a childhood friend of another criminal, defined by the police as its number 1 target, Itzhak Aberjil. “I have been accompanying the prisoner’s family for four years now”, Marziano wrote to the Release Board, “and I express my confidence in the prisoner’s honest desire to rehabilitate himself and I undertake to accompany him in his first steps after release.
Between 1997-2002, the two companies managed projects of approximately 150M NIS, which generated for Ben Harosh. Ben Harosh told the American agents, for the first time, that alongside the legal activities of these companies, their bank accounts served as a channel for laundering millions from the Trade Bank
Ben Harosh cashed the checks into tokens and began gambling. After losing $20-30K, he converted the tokens into cash at the casino … Ben Harosh said that he and Barashi gave their cash, over $220K, to Hai Waknine for safekeeping
From the American investigation report: “Ben Harosh stated that their biggest customer was Ofer Maximov. Maximov gave Barashi checks and Barashi replaced them with cash. Later, Maximov would return the money to Barashi for a commission. If Maximov was out of town, his sister Etti Alon or their father, Avigdor Maximov, would pay Barashi in his place
In Article 15 of the plea bargain, Ben Harosh undertook to “fully cooperate with the American Justice Department, Drug Enforcement Agency, Internal Revenue Service and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) … if he lies or fails to meet his commitments, the plea bargain will be revoked and his admission of guilt will be used as evidence against him”.
Until 11:00 on June 13 2006, nobody believed that Gabi Ben Harosh has indeed “turned”, as they call it in criminal slang. But then, Prosecutor Thomas Slazenger asked the judge to call the main prosecution witness to the stand. It was quiet in the hall and dozens of eyes followed the bearded man wearing a kippa behind the stand. “Gabriel Ben Harosh, Government’s witness, testifying under oath”, the bailiff chanted monotonously. Another institution of Israeli crime scene was destroyed.
Ben Harosh is an honorary member of the pantheon of Israeli crime. He was identified as the head of the Jerusalem gang, convicted of killing two of his opponents, spent almost one third of his behind bars, considered a main suspect - after Etti Alon and Ofer Maximov - in the Trade Bank case and, allegedly, managed to escape Israel with millions of the Bank’s money.
Four and a half years have gone by since the greatest embezzlement ever to occur in Israel reached the headlines – the Trade Bank case. Deputy Manager of the Bank’s investment department, Etti Alon, and her brother, Ofer Maximov, a compulsive gambler, emptied the bank, within a short period of time, of no less that 250M NIS, leading to its collapse. The confession by the brother and sister indeed made it easier for the legal authorities in Israel to arrest most of the people involved, but the police failed in its attempt to restore the money.
Since the case was uncovered in 2002 and until today, one main link remained without explanation. Gabi Ben Harosh, the man who, based on testimony of the main parties, received hundreds of bank checks totaling millions of dollars in return for loans granted to Maximov, succeeded in eluding the police at the last minute and all of its attempts to bring him back to Israel and convict him, have failed. Where the Israeli police failed, the American Federal agencies succeeded.
In 2004, the American prosecution authorities filed a 40 page indictment comprised of 48 counts against Ben Harosh and three other Israelis, who helped him, according to the prosecution, smuggle and launder the Trade Bank money in the U.S. The three were Ben Harosh’ business partners in gray market lending: contractor Sasson Barashi; criminal Yoram El Al and American businessman of Israeli origin, Hai Waknine. El Al managed to escape to South America and has not been traced since then. Barashi was arrested immediately upon his return to Israel, tried for his part in the Trade Bank case, convicted and imprisoned for 14 months. Thus, the Americans continued to hold only two defendants: Waknine and Ben Harosh.
The hierarchy in the gang was clear, so the Americans believed. “Defendant Gabi Ben Harosh”, the original indictment read, “is the head of the Jerusalem gang. Upon his order, the other members of the gang performed illegal activities relating to the group’s interests… Waknine, Barashi and El Al, under his instruction, collected debts in the United States and intimidated the debtors”.
One morning, in early March 2006, Waknine and his lawyers were surprised to be stranded in the field. Ben Harosh’s name was deleted from the indictment. On the morning of July 13th, they understood that Ben Harosh had indeed switched sides.
“Mr. Ben Harosh”, the American judge turned to him in the opening to his testimony, “were you originally a defendant in this trial yourself?”
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: Did you sign the plea bargain of your own good and free will?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: What count did you confess to?
Ben Harosh: “I confessed to arriving here in April 2002 together with Sasson Barashi and receiving money from him on the way. $35,000. I met Mr. Waknine in Miami. He took the money from me to keep it for me.”
Judge: When bringing the money into the United States, did you know that it was generated from illegal activities?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: And you brought the money into the United States in order to conceal its source?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: Did the money originate from an act of theft performed by an employee in breach of Israeli law?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: Do you know that the penalty expected for you for the charge to which you confessed is 20 years in prison?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: As part of your plea bargain, did you agree to cooperate with the government?
Ben Harosh: “I agreed to come and tell the whole truth”.
Ben Harosh’s testimonies – those given to the American authorities in court and those given under a strict suppression order and exposed here for the first time – provide a firsthand illustration of the Katamon King’s escape route. In between, we learn of the intense American effort toward capturing the heads of Israeli organized crime, who they perceive to be a true danger to the welfare of American society, greatly due to the involvement of Israeli gangs in smuggling drugs into the United States. For the Americans, Ben Harosh is just a cog in this war.
Difficult Childhood
Gabi Ben Harosh was born in Morocco in 1959. When he was two years old, his family immigrated to Israel. Even before reaching the age of eighteen, he ascended to a senior position in the Katamon Gang. Young Ben Harosh accumulated a rich record of arrests and criminal convictions for property offenses, robbery, and eight counts of violence, possession of drugs, fraud and forgery.
The hard drugs, heroin and cocaine, began penetrating Jerusalem in the late 70’s. In an attempt to gain control over the local drug market, the gang headed by Micha Aslan and Ben Harosh did not spare any measures, including hits, shootouts and use of explosives. In 1980, against the backdrop of a gang war, Ben Harosh and Aslan murdered David Hayu and Shimon Sabach, going on to hide their bodies. As part of a plea bargain, Ben Harosh confessed to strangling the two to death with his bear hands. He and Aslan were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Upon his conviction, Ben Harosh was already in prison after being convicted of drug offenses, theft and assaulting a police officer a few months earlier, leading to a sentence of four years in prison.
Ben Harosh is considered to be a charismatic, intelligent and especially impressive criminal. During his time in prison, he completed his high school, education through the Open University, and even began studying psychology. In 1986, he got married while still in prison. In 1994, after serving 2/3 of his sentence, Ben Harosh was released for good behavior. Based on the Release Board documents available to “Ha’Aretz”, a serious dispute developed between the Prison Service intelligence personnel, who adamantly opposed the early release, and between the commanders of the various prisons where Ben Harosh was imprisoned.
“We were presented with different and contradictory opinions”, wrote the head of the Release Board, Justice Shmuel Quart. “The opinion submitted by the commander of the Ayalon Prison, dated 3.3.93, stated that Ben Harosh’s conduct was positive and that he studied at the educational center, worked daily as the inmate in charge of the prison steam system and was even active in editing the prisoner bulletin. However, the representative of the Prison Service legal advisor declared, in our first meeting, that she considers the commander’s opinion to reflect the “collective fear of all wardens when addressing dangerous prisoners of this sort”.
Among those who supported Ben Harosh’s early release was Labor party member, Yoram Marziano, currently a Knesset Member and faction Chairman, who is also a childhood friend of another criminal, defined by the police as its number 1 target, Itzhak Aberjil. “I have been accompanying the prisoner’s family for four years now”, Marziano wrote to the Release Board, “and I express my confidence in the prisoner’s honest desire to rehabilitate himself and I undertake to accompany him in his first steps after release”.
Immediately following his early release, Ben Harosh appeared on Ilana Dayan’s investigative program on television, declaring that he has left the world of crime behind and that he will never return to prison. In his new incarnation, he introduced himself as a business person. In 1996, he established Amir Elad Ltd. Four years later, he established “Namir Construction and Renovation Ltd.”. The two companies were involved in construction and real estate entrepreneurship. The words from the General Manager, appearing on the front of his companies’ marketing brochure, Ben Harosh wrote: “I established the companies through great efforts, expressed in reliability, responsibility and adherence to timetables, all without initial equity… I hope that the future years will prove the strength and uncompromising quality that characterize my professional endeavors and that we will continue to flourish in the future, as we have in the past”.
And indeed, within a few years, Ben Harosh’s two companies developed into leaders in the Jerusalem real estate market. A report from Sassover Accounting demonstrates that, between 1997-2002, the two companies managed projects of approximately 150M NIS, which generated for Ben Harosh, a profit of about 11M NIS.
Ten years after beginning his business journey, on 30 January 2006, Ben Harosh will tell the American agents, for the first time, that alongside the legal activities of these companies, their bank accounts served as a channel for laundering millions from the Trade Bank, given to him by Etti Alon and her brother, Ofer Maximov.
The contact between Ben Harosh and Maximov began after Ben Harosh was unfulfilled with the construction business only and went on to operate in the gray market. In September 2001, together with his friend from the Jerusalem gang, Micha Aslan, and the Jerusalem based contractor, Sasson Barashi, Ben Harosh established a check cashing and grey market lending company. “Ben Harosh declared that Barashi served as the general manager of the company and managed its business, and that he, himself, provided financial backing”, thus appearing in the American report compiled to summarize his testimony.
“Ben Harosh”, according to the report, “stated that their biggest customer was Ofer Maximov. Maximov gave Barashi checks and Barashi replaced them with cash. Later, Maximov would return the money to Barashi for a commission. If Maximov was out of town, his sister Etti Alon or their father, Avigdor Maximov, would pay Barashi in his place. Ben Harosh stated that Barashi used to deposit some of the money stolen from the Trade Bank into Ben Harosh’s business and private accounts… some of the money taken from the Trade Bank… integrated and combined with other money derived from his legitimate activities”.
In another interview on “Uvda”, Ilana Dayan confronted Ben Harosh with Israel Police intelligence by which Ben Harosh met with Israeli crime bosses, including Itzhak Aberjil, and undertook to take on Ofer Maximov’s debts. At this stage, Ben Harosh denied any connection to the Trade Bank case and refuse to discuss the said summit meeting.
Ben Harosh’s American investigators received similar information. “Ofer Maximov was a heavy gambler who accumulated millions of dollars in debt to a large group of people”, testified Diane Ritter, special DEA agent who conducted the investigation when the Americans suspected that the millions smuggled into the United States, originated from drug deals. “The investigative material received from the Israel police, including hidden tape recordings of the Jerusalem group, Itzhak Bar Mucha and Yossi Malka were heard talking about how Gabi Ben Harosh took over all of Maximov’s debts. Malka told Bar Mucha that Ben Harosh told them that they have to protect Maximov so they “don’t lose”.
Maximov became a goose laying golden eggs for the Jerusalem gang. Ben Harosh and his men accompanied him personally to the casinos in Israel and around the world, allowed him to increase his debt and made sure to collect it, together with a high commission, from him or his father and sister. In the meantime, the Trade Bank accounts continued to empty. None of the people involved in the party realized how close everything was to exploding.
The Great Escape
Four months after establishing his loan company, in December 2001, Gabi Ben Harosh traveled to Las Vegas and stayed at the famous Bellagiio Hotel for three days. He met Hai Waknine on that trip. The click between them was instant. Waknine, now 34 years old, was born in Be’er Sheva. When he was four, his family moved to Los Angeles. His brother, Assaf Waknine was Robert Ben Shoshan’s partner in the “Roberto” modeling agency.
As early as high school, Waknine demonstrated keen business skills. After generating an initial fortune from buying and selling used cars, he began leading an extravagant lifestyle that attracted the attention of the local legal authorities. In 1989, in tenth grade, he and two other students were arrested after assaulting a youngster who walked around the school yard yelling racist comments against Jews and Negroes. The youngster was taken to the hospital in severe condition. The three youths stayed out of prison thanks to their age, but they were expelled from school.
Hal Arthur, a teacher at the school, was murdered a few weeks later. His body was found in front of his home with three bullets in his head. The Los Angeles police investigated all of the students who had a criminal record, including Hai Waknine. He was released after six hours of investigations, but his full name appeared in one of the local newspapers on the next day. At the time, Waknine, who was a minor, sued the Los Angeles Police Department and the newspaper for $10M. After a long legal battle that went on for seven years, Waknine won a huge sum of money in a settlement. The teacher’s murderer, by the way, was caught six years later.
Waknine entered the jewelry and real estate business in his early twenties, purchased a number of fashionable night clubs in Los Angeles and befriended popular figures from the Hollywood entertainment scene. At a certain point, he became friends with the Israel musician Moshe Noy of the “Shagririm” and together, they organized large scale events for the Israeli and Jewish community. In the mid 1990’s, he purchased the building housing the Los Angeles diamond exchange as well as a line of other expensive properties. In addition, he established a diamond transport company that is considered to be the largest in its field on the West Coast, as well as a limosine rental company. Alongside his commercial properties, Waknine also owns a villa in Marina Del Rey in Los Angeles and a penthouse apartment on the Acapulco beach in Mexico. Real estate experts have estimated the value of his properties at about $30M.
Waknine became involved in another criminal case in 1996. This time, he was arrested by the Los Angeles Police as a suspect involved in blackmailing, threatening and kidnapping a diamond dealer called Chermansky, and holding him hostage in an apartment that Waknine rented for one of his limosine company chauffeurs. Waknine remained silent during his interrogation and after a trial that went on for three weeks; he and his driver were cleared for lack of evidence.
Ten years later, in 2006, Yehuda Ben Attar, or “Judy” as his friends called him, also born in the Katamon neighborhood and a member of the Jerusalem gang, took the witness stand in Waknine’s trial and told the court that Waknine was his partner in the blackmail and abduction of Chermansky. A year earlier, Ben Attar was sentenced to 20 years in prison for trading in Ecstasy. In court, he explained that in return for his testimony against Waknine, he is hoping to receive a lighter sentence.
In 1999, Waknine found himself involved in a case that ended in murder. He was asked to serve as an arbitrator in a business conflict that arose between Jonathan Abrams and Eli Dromi, two American-Israeli businesspeople. Abrams decided to submit the issue to an arbitrator. “When Dromi discovered that Waknine is the arbitrator, he got very scared because of his reputation within the Israeli community”, testified DEA agent Ritter, who interrogated the two business people in relation to the said case. “In his interrogation, Dromi told me that he wanted a criminal element on his side, who could help him stand up to Waknine. An Israeli friend recommended another Israeli residing in Los Angeles, Alon Giladi. Giladi, Dromi and Waknine met at the “Haifa” restaurant on Pekoe Boulevard in Los Angeles on 29 November 1999. At that meeting, Giladi informed Dromi that he agrees with Waknine and that he must pay his debt of $306K”.
Four days after the arbitration meeting, Alon Giladi’s body was found in the trunk of a car on the shoulder of a Los Angeles highway. “The investigation found that he was murdered on November 29th, a short time after the meeting at ‘Haifa’”, testified the agent. A short time after discovering Giladi’s body, the Los Angeles police arrested Ben Cohen and Nathan Hannan. The two were tried, convicted and, under a plea bargain, recently released.
Since his trial began, the American media has often described Waknine as the American arm of the Jerusalem gang in the United States. “The Jerusalem network is a violent gang that was established by members of Israeli crime families”, says the original indictment submitted against the four Israelis in July 2003. “The group is involved with grey market loans, blackmail, money laundering and illegal gambling in California, Nevada and Florida, and other locations in the United States, Europe and Israel, and it operates toward increasing its power through illegal activities in other parts of the world. The network has gained a great deal of influence in the United States by developing connections with criminal factors, legitimate business people and Israeli born businesspeople in California, Florida and Nevada. Some were even blackmailed by the group themselves”.
The hierarchy between Ben Harosh and Waknine is confusing. On the one hand, Ben Harosh was defined as the head of the Jerusalem gang while Waknine was defined its executive branch. On the other hand, Ben Harosh is the one who eventually signed a plea bargain and came out with a very light punishment, while Waknine has become the main defendant in the American case. Beyond that, the power relations deteriorated when Ben Harosh was forced to flee Israel with the discovery of the Trade Bank case, and Waknine became his host and lifeboat.
Condensed timetable: In February 2002, Ben Harosh accepted Waknine’s invitation and went to spend Valentine’s Day, together with his wife, in Waknine’s luxurious penthouse in Acapulco. “Ben Harosh said that, during this vacation, he received a fax from Israel, telling him that a new law was passed in Israel the day before, rendering the grey market illegal”, states the investigation report.
One month later, in March 2002, the Ben Harosh couple returned to the United States once again, this time for a Passover meal that Waknine organized for his family and friends at the royal suite of the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. “Ben Harosh said that he brought with him $100-120K in cash”. On the eve of his return to Israel, Ben Harosh told Waknine that he is considering moving to the United States with his family and becoming involved in local businesses. Waknine took Ben Harosh around Los Angeles, showing him various buildings and properties that he owned, and introduced him to some of his business partners.
April 2002 started as a routine month for Ben Harosh and his partners. They continued to lend Maximov money at high commissions and the Holon greengrocer continued to burn up millions of dollars in casinos around the world. Ben Harosh traveled to Bucharest, Romania, on April 23rd, stayed at the Marriott Hotel and met with Maximov on his first evening at the casino. Ben Harosh told his American investigators that that was the last time he met Ofer Maximov. Taken from the investigation protocol:
What did you and Maximov talk about at that meeting in Romania?
“I asked him about the balance of the money that he still owed us”.
How much did Maximov owe you at the time?
“About 7-8M NIS, approximately $1.6M”.
Who else was with you on that trip to Romania?
“A guy named Shlomi Oz and another guy named Yossi Malka”.
Do you know any other people that Maximov owed money to?
“I know some of them. I know Benny Ravizada, Yossi Malka, Itzik Bar Mucha”.
Who is Benny Ravizada?
“Benny Ravizada is the “Bank of America” in the Israeli grey market”.
Two days after his return to Israel, at noon on April 27 2002, Etti Alon, Maximov’s sister and head of the Trade Bank credit department, entered a police station and confessed to the embezzlement. That same evening, while Etti Alon’s interrogators continued to fill in page after page of testimony, Sasson Barashi called his partner, Ben Harosh, asking for an urgent meeting. “I understood from him that we are in trouble and that it would be wise to leave Israel immediately”, Ben Harosh told his American investigators.
At that time, how much of the money that Barashi gave you remained in your accounts?
“3.2M NIS, which were approximately $750K. It was Friday… I withdrew the entire amount with four bank checks of 800K NIS, written out to Sasson. Sasson went on to give those checks to Micha Aslan in order to cash them. I said goodbye to him and, on the night between April 27th and 28th, 2002, I left Israel”.
From the bank, Ben Harosh drove directly to the Ben Gurion Airport and from there went on to Brussels. In the Belgian capital, he hired a taxi to take him to Amsterdam. Barashi arrived on a later flight and crossed the border to Holland in a rented car. The two stayed at the Grand Kresnopolsky Hotel. According to the investigation report, “Ben Harosh said that Barashi gave him $40K in cash from the Trade Bank money”.
What did you and Barashi decide to do at that stage?
“I called Mr. Waknine and asked him if he had heard of what happened in Israel. He said yes and suggested that I meet him in Miami, where he was staying at the time. He said that the best place to be in, in light of the situation, is the United States. He said that he would be waiting for us and that he already reserved rooms for us”.
What about the money?
Ben Harosh and Barashi accepted Waknine’s suggestion and flew to Miami on the next day. Based on the report summarizing Ben Harosh’s testimony: “Ben Harosh said that upon arrival in Miami, Waknine took the cash that they had, explaining that it is too dangerous for them to carry such amounts around in the event that they are arrested. Ben Harosh said that he gave Waknine money through different channels in order for him to launder it in the United States and keep it for him. He mentioned that he was under severe pressure to get all of his money out of Israel before the police confiscates it”. Ben Harosh said that he transferred all of his money form Israel to the United States and that Waknine is helping him find ways “to invest” (quotes appear in the original” the money in order to hide it even deeper from the police”.
Following is a description provided by American federal agents on the methods employed by the head of the Jerusalem gang for laundering the money from the bank: “Ben Harosh said that, in Las Vegas, he and Barashi went into the casino of the Paris Hotel, where Barashi kept an account. Barashi wrote out checks to his name, amounting to $140-160K… Ben Harosh cashed the checks into tokens and began gambling. After losing $20-30K, he converted the tokens into cash at the casino … Ben Harosh said that he and Barashi gave their cash, over $220K, to Hai Waknine for safekeeping”.
Ben Harosh found another way to launder money in Miami. During his previous visit, Ben Harosh met with two other Israelis living in the United States – Eli Haddad and Yossef Attia. Ritter: “Haddad and Attia proposed that they invest in their venture in Florida. Attia and Ben Harosh first met when Ben Harosh was serving 18 years in prison for manslaughter and he shared a cell with Itzhak Aberjil. In 1993, Attia moved to Germany, where he was arrested for importing cocaine and served five years in prison. He returned to Israel in 1998, where he met Aberjil once again. That year, he was sent to Panama to arrange a shipment of 50 kg of cocaine to Israel, using the money given to him by an Israeli citizen called Danny Martinez. Attia told me that Meir Aberjil, Itzhak’s brother, and Martinez were business partner. Attia said that the money given to him to buy the cocaine was stolen by a local operator who served as a mediator in the transaction”.
In May, in the midst of the escape and laundering spree, Haddad and Attia asked Ben Harosh for a $520K loan in order to promote their business venture in Panama. The loan was disbursed in three installments. The day after Ben Harosh transferred the third installment to Attia’s people in Israel, agent Ritter said, “Waknine and Ben Harosh contacted Attia and Haddad, and asked to meet them in an apartment that Waknine rented in Miami. In his interrogation, Attia told me that the apartment was on the eighth floor of a residential building. Ben Harosh went out on the balcony with him and told him that he wanted his money back the next morning, or else he would kill him”. The threats worked and the two indeed returned the money to Ben Harosh. They later testified about the entire case in Waknine’s trial.
Ben Harosh invested another million dollars of the Trade Bank money in a luxurious car dealership in Los Angeles that offered models of Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Mercedes. Waknine himself was one of the owners of the dealership. During 2003, when Ben Harosh tried to find refuge in Spain, Waknine sent him a luxurious Mercedes Jeep.
Going on from Miami, Ben Harosh arrived in Los Angeles to continue laundering the money. “Ben Harosh told me that Waknine took him to the owner of a jewelry store and gave him a check for $150K and a personal check for $85K withdrawn from the newly established account for Amir Elad in Miami. He said that, using the money, they purchased a purple diamond and that Waknine told him that “their half” of the diamond is worth $235K.
Ben Harosh grew more and more dependent upon Waknine. Based on the testimony summary report: “Ben Harosh said that he gave Waknine the money because he could not give it to any of his other friends, since the police knew of their identity and was following them. According to him, Waknine was a new friend that that police was unaware of”.
An Electronic Ankle Cuff
For four months, during which he was declared a fugitive criminal and wanted for investigation, Ben Harosh traveled between Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas and Mexico, trying to decide on his next steps. He returned to Los Angeles on August 1st 2002 to meet his wife and family at the international airport upon their arrival from Israel. When Ben Harosh was requested to explain to the INS agents why he stated on his application that he does not have a criminal record, he escaped the airport, leaving the INS with his passport, his wife and his family. While his wife and family were under surveillance, Gabi Ben Harosh managed to escape back to Mexico. It was only on August 28th, after extended negotiations, that the family was permitted to return to Israel.
On June 28th, while Ben Harosh was still roving between Spain, Morocco and Mexico for fear of being caught, he learned that his friend and partner at the top of the Jerusalem gang, Micha Aslan, was murdered in Eilat. An assassin waited for him when leaving a business meeting and shot him in the back with five bullets at point blank range. Shocked by the murder and exhausted by a year of escaping, Ben Harosh decided to go to Canada. He considered staying there permanently, but the Americans had different plans.
Exactly two years after escaping from Israel, on April 26, 2004, a federal judge signed an arrest warrant against “the Israeli gang”: Gabi Ben Harosh, Hai Waknine, Yoram El Al, Sasson Barashi and another American citizen of Vietnamese descent. El Al managed to flee from the United States. Barashi was already under arrest in Israel for the abduction of Ofer Maximov and his involvement in the Trade Bank case. Waknine was arrested early in the morning at his home in Los Angeles. Ben Harosh was arrested in Canada a few hours later. Upon searching Waknine’s home, the FBI confiscated, among other things, dozens of pictures of him together with Ben Harosh at various events.
The two defendants were brought before an arresting judge. Only after depositing personal bail of $3M for each of them, they were released to house arrest until their trial, with an electronic cuff around their ankle. During the two years since then, the defense teams hired by the two, operated with a cooperative effort toward getting them both exonerated of the severe indictment.
David Kenner, Waknine’s attorney, received a phone call from a journalist on January 14th, 2006, telling him that Ben Harosh fired his attorney, David Chesnoff, a few hours earlier and instead, hired attorney Kiene Sloane Heller. Kenner, one of the leading criminal attorneys in the United States, immediately understood what this meant: Chesnoff is known as an attorney who refuses to represent clients who have signed a plea bargain with the prosecution, Sloane Heller is less picky.
On January 30th, Gabi Ben Harosh and his new attorney walked into the DEA building in Los Angeles for a confidential meeting with two people from the district attorney’s office, Thomas Slazenger and Patrick McLaughlin, as well as agents from the DEA. The objective of the meeting was to examine the possibility of reaching a settlement, but the Americans first wanted to hear what Ben Harosh had to offer.
In an 11-page document, under the heading “Highly Sensitive Information”, some of which is cited in this article, Ben Harosh related the particulars of his involvement in the Trade Bank case, step after step, and the methods in which he attempted to launder the embezzled funds. He told his investigators that he estimates to have given Hai Waknine and his brother, Assaf Waknine, approximately $3.7M, which were withdrawn from his accounts in Israel and for them to invest them for him in the United States.
Gabi Ben Harosh signed a plea bargain with the American Justice Department on February 20th. In a 22-page document, he undertook toward the American government that, in return for his testimony against Hai Waknine, the Americans will disregard the millions that he smuggled in from Israel and will decrease his indictment to one count only – bringing $35K of the Trade Bank money into the United States. In addition, they undertook to lower the penalty from 20 years in prison to only two years.
An examination of the legal document exposes that the testimony against Waknine was only part of the greater scheme that the United States devised for Ben Harosh. In Article 15 of the plea bargain, Ben Harosh also undertook to “fully cooperate with the American Justice Department, Drug Enforcement Agency, Internal Revenue Service and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in accordance with instructions from the American prosecutor. This cooperation requires the following of the defendant: to provide full and true answers to any questions presented thereto as part of interrogations, or before a jury, or within any other legal proceedings. To appear and participate in all meetings, jury discussions, legal deliberations or any other legal proceedings in which his presence is required by the prosecutor. To obtain, of his own free and good will, any document or other tangible evidence relating to the issues required by the prosecutor or anyone on his behalf. If the defendant lies or fails to meet his commitments, the plea bargain will be revoked and his admission of guilt will be used as evidence against him”.
On March 2, 2006, Ben Harosh appeared before a federal judge to ratify the plea bargain. When Waknine and his attorneys learned that Ben Harosh would serve as a prosecution witness against them, the understood that they have only a few months in order to undermine his reliability. For three months, between March and May, a team of American private investigators cam to Israel with a very clear order – leave no stones unturned and get all of the information available on Gabi Ben Harosh. The results were not especially impressive. Very few people agreed to share information on the person known as the head of the number one gang.
Hai Waknine’s trial opened at the federal court in Los Angeles on June 13, 2006. The American-Israeli businessman kept hoping, until the last moment, that his friend would change his mind. But once Ben Harosh took the witness stand, Waknine realized that it was all over. A short time after the trial began, Waknine also decided to sign a plea bargain with the Americans. Admission of guilt in return for ten years in prison.
And what about Gabi Ben Harosh? On the one side, he was right when he said that he would never go back to prison. Today, he continues to live in Los Angeles with his family and only 3,000 hours of community service. On the other hand, the plea bargain still requires him to fully cooperate with the American investigative authorities in any case that it is required. Now, he has left to see whether or not he will appear on the witness stand again in other cases currently taking place in the United States, against the heads of Israeli organized crime organizations. If he refuses to testify against them, he has a 20 year sentence dangling over his head.
Judge: And you brought the money into the United States in order to conceal its source?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: Did the money originate from an act of theft performed by an employee in breach of Israeli law?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: Do you know that the penalty expected for you for the charge to which you confessed is 20 years in prison?
Ben Harosh: “Yes, your honor”.
Judge: As part of your plea bargain, did you agree to cooperate with the government?
Ben Harosh: “I agreed to come and tell the whole truth”.
Based on the report summarizing Ben Harosh’s testimony: “Ben Harosh said that upon arrival in Miami, Waknine took the cash that they had, explaining that it is too dangerous for them to carry such amounts around in the event that they are arrested.
The hierarchy between Ben Harosh and Waknine is confusing. On the one hand, Ben Harosh was defined as the head of the Jerusalem gang while Waknine was defined its executive branch. On the other hand, Ben Harosh is the one who eventually signed a plea bargain and came out with a very light punishment, while Waknine has become the main defendant in the American case.
Yoram Marziano, currently a Knesset Member and faction Chairman, who is also a childhood friend of another criminal, defined by the police as its number 1 target, Itzhak Aberjil. “I have been accompanying the prisoner’s family for four years now”, Marziano wrote to the Release Board, “and I express my confidence in the prisoner’s honest desire to rehabilitate himself and I undertake to accompany him in his first steps after release.
Between 1997-2002, the two companies managed projects of approximately 150M NIS, which generated for Ben Harosh. Ben Harosh told the American agents, for the first time, that alongside the legal activities of these companies, their bank accounts served as a channel for laundering millions from the Trade Bank
Ben Harosh cashed the checks into tokens and began gambling. After losing $20-30K, he converted the tokens into cash at the casino … Ben Harosh said that he and Barashi gave their cash, over $220K, to Hai Waknine for safekeeping
From the American investigation report: “Ben Harosh stated that their biggest customer was Ofer Maximov. Maximov gave Barashi checks and Barashi replaced them with cash. Later, Maximov would return the money to Barashi for a commission. If Maximov was out of town, his sister Etti Alon or their father, Avigdor Maximov, would pay Barashi in his place
In Article 15 of the plea bargain, Ben Harosh undertook to “fully cooperate with the American Justice Department, Drug Enforcement Agency, Internal Revenue Service and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) … if he lies or fails to meet his commitments, the plea bargain will be revoked and his admission of guilt will be used as evidence against him”.
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