Israelis and ecstasy drug trade

Posted on April-6-2003

• Israelis at center of ecstasy drug trade

• 3 Israelis suspected of ecstasy smuggling arrested in NY

• Two Israelis extradited to U.S. on ecstasy smuggling charges

Israelis at center of ecstasy drug trade

By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz Correspondent

Israel is at the center of international trade in the drug ecstasy, according to a document published last week by the U.S. State Department.

In recent years, organized crime in Israel, some with links to criminal organizations in Russia, have come to control the distribution of the drug in Europe, according to a Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs document.

The same document also points out that Israeli criminal groups have a hand in the distribution of ecstasy in North America.

During 2000, 80 percent of the ecstasy seized in North America originated in the Netherlands, which is the largest production center, along with Belgium and Poland. The State Department is certain that Israeli organizations are linked to the laboratories in the Netherlands and are responsible for the worldwide distribution.

"Israeli drug distribution organizations are currently the main source for distribution of the drug to groups inside the U.S., to smuggling through express mail services, through couriers on commercial flights and, recently, through air cargo," states the report. In the past two years, the U.S. has dealt more severely with ecstasy. Federal judges deal with smugglers in the ecstasy trade with the same severity as heroin and cocaine dealers.

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3 Israelis suspected of ecstasy smuggling arrested in NY

By Roni Zinger, Ha'aretz Correspondent

Three Israelis were arrested at the beginning of the week in New York for allegedly planing to smuggle 1.4 million ecstasy pills, worth some $42 million, into the United States. Authorities said that the three, caught in a joint operation of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Tel Aviv police, Israeli Police Intelligence and the Belgian police, were behind the largest ecstasy smuggling operation in America's history.

One of the suspects was scheduled to be brought to court on Friday for a hearing on extending his remand.

Officials believe that the three tried to smuggle the pills into America hidden inside diamond polishing tables shipped from Belgium to New York. The Federal Prosecution's office said that U.S. officials were tipped off on the smuggling operation by Belgium police who informed authorities that the pills were hidden inside the tables.

The three, from Tel Aviv and Holon, ages 49, 29 and 20, were caught after a three month long investigation and police said they expected more arrests to be carried out.

If the three are convicted, they could be fined a million dollars and sentenced to twenty years in jail.

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Two Israelis extradited to U.S. on ecstasy smuggling charges

By Reuters 

MIAMI - Two Israelis described as major smugglers of the party drug ecstasy have been extradited by Israel to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges, U.S. officials said on Friday. 

Meir Ben David and Josef Levi were indicted in October 2000 on charges of possession and conspiracy to import MDMA, or ecstasy, into the United States. U.S. officials said it was the first time Israeli citizens had been extradited to the United States to face drug charges. 

Officials said the two were part of an Israeli-organized crime syndicate that used couriers to smuggle large quantities of ecstasy from Europe to the United States from early 1998 until mid-1999. 

U.S. agents seized about 200,000 ecstasy tablets and $400,000 in cash during the investigation in which 40 people were indicted, officials said. 

"Ben David and Levi are textbook examples of the type of major international drug traffickers the DEA targets worldwide," U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Thomas Raffanello said in a written statement. 

Ecstasy is an amphetamine that has stimulant and hallucinogenic effects and is popular with teen-agers and young adults at dance clubs, parties and rock concerts. 

Officials alleged Ben David coordinated shipments of ecstasy from Europe to the United States, and Levi helped distribute the drug at nightclubs in south Florida. 

The two, who were arrested in Israel last August, were expected to arrive in Florida this weekend and appear in a federal court in Miami on Monday. 

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