Group of Rabbi's involved in NJ corruption scandal

While many elasticities were involved in the corruption in NJ, the Rabbi's represent the leadership of their communities and thus are far more troubling.

It does seem that crime, while not everything, is a significant part of their method of operation, which is troubling indeed.

We also saw this with the Kosher Iowa meet plant, in which a meth lab was uncovered during an immigration bust.

Religious leaders allegedly acted like 'crime bosses' in a massive money-laundering and illegal organ trading case that broke this week, New Jersey District Attorney Ralph Marra said Saturday.

"For these defendants, corruption was a way of life," Marra said, adding "Politicians had willingly put themselves up for sale ... the existed in an ethics-free zone."

Solomon Dwek, a failed real-estate entrepreneur and an FBI informant, is the man behind the arrests week. Dwek's identity was revealed in documents submitted to the court Saturday.
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On Friday, some of the 44 suspects were released on bail.

Some New Jersey residents said they feared the investigation was motivated by another mob that wanted to "clear the ground" for its own operations. Others sought comfort in the diversity of the suspects.

"It's nice to see people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds working so closely for corruption and fraud. Syrian Jews, Italian Americans, Afro-American, Hispanics ... it's equal-opportunity corruption," one person said.

The investigation began in 1999 with two local corruption cases, but only genuinely took off in May 2006, when Dwek, a real-estate businessman from the Syrian Jewish community in Deal, New Jersey, was arrested while trying to cash a $25 million bad check.

Due to his debts and the evidence against him, he agreed to cooperate with the FBI. Armed with a microphone, an unfounded reputation as a real-estate mogul and envelopes thick with cash, Dwek was sent to scores of meetings with politicians, officials and rabbis. He tried to convince them to help him "promote his business" and launder money.

The investigation became public last Thursday, when more than 200 FBI agents stormed the suspects in their offices, arrested them and searched the premises. Twenty-nine people were arrested on charges of corruption, and 15 were held on suspicions of money laundering, including the "kidney trade middleman," Levi-Yitzhak Rosenbaum. There were so many detainees that a bus was used to transport them.

The arrest of five rabbis, whose pictures were splashed across the front pages of U.S. newspapers, led some to dub the affair "Kosher Nostra."

The rabbis, including two synagogue leaders, are suspected of organizing a money-laundering network that allegedly worked through charities in Deal, Brooklyn and Israel.

The money came from a variety of sources, from a fraudulent bankruptcy claim to profits from selling fake Gucci bags.

The FBI set up a shell company to trap one suspect, Eliyahu Ben Haim, rabbi of the Ohel Yaakov synagogue in Deal. Ben Haim allegedly accepted a $50,000 check from Dwek from the straw company's account, addressed to one of the rabbi's charities. The rabbi agreed to keep 10 percent of the money, and to return the remainder to Dwek, "cleaned up."

On another occasion, Dwek is said to have brought the rabbi a cereal box stuffed with $97,000 in cash to be laundered. Rabbi Edmond Nahum, also among the detainees, allegedly told Dwek "to spread it among as many rabbis as possible," in order to better cover his tracks.

The District Attorney's office stressed that the suspects' religion was irrelevant, and that all the suspects knew the money they were laundering came from illegal sources.

"These rings, led by clergymen, cloaked their extensive criminal activities behind a facade of rectitude," Marra said, describing a disgraceful picture of religious leaders leading money-laundering crews and acting as crime bosses.

Senior politicians, mostly Democrats, were also no strangers to Dwek's envelopes, especially when campaigning. The mayors of Hoboken, Secaucus and Ridgefield; a New Jersey City deputy mayor; and others all allegedly took money from Dwek for their campaigns, while promising to help him.

Hoboken Mayor Peter J. Cammarano III, who took office on July 1, two weeks before his arrest, allegedly promised Dwek that he would be be "treated like a friend."

Dwek, while allegedly giving a bribe to New Jersey assemblyman Daniel Van-Pelt, made sure no one could suspect him of political bias.

"I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican," he is said to have told Van-Pelt. "I'm a member of the Green party. Green is cash."

Most of the suspects have been released on bail and tagged with electronic tracking devices. Meanwhile, it is becoming clear that these arrests were only the beginning.

Cammarano's spokesman said the mayor was "totally innocent" and intended to fight the charges. And pundits and commentators already began guessing what repercussions the affair will have for the upcoming gubernatorial campaign of the incumbent, Jon Corzine, who took office four years ago on a corruption fighting platform.