'Hotel waiters' arrest rabbi blackmailers

American millionaire suspects his donation missing, rabbi fears extortion and threats. Police detectives disguised as waiters put end to saga, arresting suspects during recorded meeting

Members taking part in the dubious meeting at the Carlton Hotel in Tel Aviv were likely surprised to receive such courteous service from the hotel waiters. They had no idea that these waiters were actually part of a special undercover police unit playing dress-up. The waiters were only interested in documenting an extortion meeting between an important religious personality and the suspects held at the hotel.

פרשת שחיתות מטלטלת: מי גנב הכסף מ'המקובל'?
בסיפור העלילתי הזה, יש הכל: מקובל בכיר, גביר, דיין חרדי ואנשי עולם התחתון. הכל מתחיל בתרומות תמימות שהעביר גביר לחצר המקובל. בפגישה שערך הגביר אצל המקובל לפני מספר שבועות, גילה כי התרומות לא הגיעו ליעדן. אז, החלה הדרמה להתגלגל, עד לתרגיל משטרתי שהוביל למעצר. חשיפה

Special detectives arrested suspects in an extortion and threat case of an important and influential Bnei Brak rabbi in Tel Aviv on Monday afternoon.

According to police intelligence, some of the suspects belong to crime organizations, so the meeting was held in a hotel due to a growing concern of criminal entanglement and the suspects' money demands.

This odd case began a few weeks back, when a Jewish millionaire living in New York wanted to know what happened to his $600,000 donation he had given a well know religious personality in the ultra-Orthodox sector in Bnei Brak. When he arrived in Israel and was not welcomed by the religious personality, he began worrying about what might have happened to his money.

When his assistants approached the rabbi, he said that he had never received the money.

At this point, mediators steps in offering to help return the money to the American millionaire. One of these mediators turned to a well know criminal, who in return demanded $50,000 fee for retrieving the donation sum, however the criminal and his associates demanded to get their fee using extortion and threats.

The well-known religious personality and his people were afraid of making things worse and decided to involve the police in the matter.


This is how the meeting in Carlton Hotel came about. The head of the investigation, Chief Inspector Avi Goldin, prepared for the meeting ahead of time, placing recording and listening devices in the hotel lobby. The "head waiter" was Chief Superintendent Yoav Cotler.

Within a short while, all the characters met in the lobby and began to threaten the religious personality, demanding he return the donation money. At the end of the meeting, the police arrested the extortion suspects and since then has extended their arrest a few times.

The Magistrate Court in Tel Aviv approved publicizing the affair, but has yet to release the names of those involved

הבנות של ברונפמן וכת המיליונים

האבא הוא מילארדר יהודי, שאחראי לעשרות פרויקטים בישראל ובעל פעילות ענפה בקונגרס הציוני העולמי, אך בנותיו מעדיפות פעילות מסוג אחר. בנותיו של אדגר ברונפמן, שרה וקלייר, מעורבות לפי דיווחים שונים בכת מסוכנת בשם "נקסיום". ראש הכת כבר הודה ש"גרם למותם של אנשים", ומספר חברות בכת אף נעלמו מבלי להשאיר עקבות


מהומה במשפחת ברונפמן: בנותיו המיליארדר היהודי אדגר ברונפמן, שרה וקלייר, היו חברות בכת שלפי החשד גרמה למותן של אנשים. בסוף השבוע האחרון הועלתה ליו-טיוב קלטת בה מודה ראש הכת כי "גרם למות אנשים בגלל האמונה שלהם".

לפי דיווחים, בנותיו של ברונפמן היו מעורבות בארגון סודי בשם "נקסיום" והזרימו אליו סכומי עתק מקרנות הנאמנות המשפחתיות שלהן בשש השנים האחרונות, כדי לממן את הארגון ואת תוכניות השקעה כביכול של מנהיגו. הן עשו זאת על ידי שליחת מכתב סחיטה פיקטיבי לעצמן. בפועל, הכסף ששילמה המשפחה ל"סוחטים" הועבר ישירות לכת. עיתון אמריקני טוען כי מדובר בלא פחות מ-150 מיליון דולרים.


- פרסומת -בקלטת הווידאו, מודה ראש הכת, קית רנייר בן ה-50, במעשי ההרג. התמונות מנציחות שיחה שלו עם שתי נשים ב-2009. השתיים, שפניהן מוסתרות, מדברות על החששות שלהן מפני מה שמתרחש בכת ועל פעילויותיו העסקיות של רנייר. הן, וכמה חברות אחת בכת, הקליטו שעות שיחה עם רנייר, שבמהלכן הוא ניסה לשכנען לא לנטוש את הכת שלו, כך לדברי מקורות שמצוטטים ב"ניו יורק פוסט".

"גרמתי למותם של אנשים בגלל האמונות שלי או שלהם"

בקלטת שמפרסם העיתון אומר רנייר: "אז הנה מה שקורה. גרמתי למותם של אנשים בגלל האמונות שלי או בגלל האמונות שלהם". חברים לשעבר בכת אמרו דבריו מדאיגים במיוחד על רקע היעלמותה המסתורית של חברה לשעבר בכת ב-2003. מדובר בקריסטין סניידר, פעילה להגנת הסביבה בת 35, שנעלמה מבית מלון באלסקה לאחר שהשתתפה בכמה קורסים של נקסיום. לא ידוע מה אירע לה, וגופתה לא נמצאה מעולם. הטנדר שלה, מתוצרת "טויוטה", נתגלה על חוף מפרץ באלסקה ובו המסר הבא: "שטפו לי את המוח והמרכז הרגשי של מוחי חוסל... אנא התקשרו להוריי אם מצאתם את המסר הזה".

רנייר מופיע בקלטת עם זקן מדובלל, שיער ארוך וחולצת טי שמנונית. באחד מקטעי הקלטת הוא חולק על השגות של אחת משתי הנשים לגבי כישלון עסקי שגרם להסתבכותו עם השלטונות. נראה שהוא מנסה להזכיר לה את עוצמתו כראש נקסיום.

"אנשים ירו בי בגלל האמונות שלי", הוא אומר. "הייתי צריך לקבל החלטות. לשכור שומרי ראש, לחמש אותם, או לא? אבל אני עומד בראש ארגון טוב מאוד. אפשר לומר, ככל שיש יותר אור, כך יש יותר חרקים... הייתי אומר שיש לנו אור חזק מאוד".

אדגר ברונפמן ניסה למנוע את חברותן של בנותיו בכת. "הוא היה מודאג עמוקות ורצה לדעת מה קורה עם הילדות שלו", אמר חבר לשעבר בנקסיום, שנפגש עם ברונפמן אשתקד. "הוא ראה אותן, אבל הוא ראה רק מסיכות. הבנות היו מרוחקות ושומרות סוד", הוסיף אותו מקור.

עם זאת, במשפחת ברונפמן ממשיכים להכחיש ולטעון: "הכל בולשיט"

42 weapons and drug dealers arrested

The arms dealers were arrested after a police sting operation that used an undercover agent operating for a whole year in the cities Lod, Petah Tikva, Kfar Sava and Jaljulya.

Forty-two suspected drug and weapons dealers were arrested on Monday morning as part of a police sting operation that involved the use of an undercover agent. Twenty-seven of the forty-two arrested are residents of Lod. The police are still searching for 13 other suspects in the case.

The undercover agent operated for the past year in the cities of Lod, Petah Tikva, Kfar Sava and Jaljulya, and collected evidence on 54 criminals. In his undercover role, the agent purchased a number of different drugs from the suspects, among them cocaine, heroine, hashish, and marijuana. The agent also purchased a number of weapons from the suspects.

Police officer Dror Asraf reacted to the claim that the operation had been publicized in order to stifle criticism of the Lod police, on Monday morning on Army Radio. According to Asraf, "Israeli police do not do their jobs for public relations purposes, we do our work with utmost seriousness, and [we've been working on this case] for a long time now."

Asraf added, "The agent cracked the case after working on the case for a year, in which significant targets that influence crime in the area were picked out."

"The man was ready to purchase arms, in order to minimize the amount of weapons in circulation. The arms he purchased were automatic weapons and bombs that could have caused great damage," Asraf said.

There have been three murders in the city of Lod so far in this calendar month. On October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened an emergency meeting in Lod with Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch and Interior Minister Eli Yishai to deal with the recent spate of murders in the city.

NJ police officer dies in car crash

TEANECK, N.J. — A single-car crash has claimed the life of a police officer in northern New Jersey.

The officer’s patrol car slammed into a utility pole across the street from Teaneck police headquarters around 2 a.m. Monday.

News 12 New Jersey reports officials have not released the name of the 37-year-old, 17-year veteran of the force.

He is survived by a wife and a child.

The cause of the crash is under investigation
He has been identified as John Abraham, 37, who was on the force for 16 years

Hospital's top cop had 'B-S' degree

The head of security for Kings County Hospital -- hired after the shocking June 2008 death of a psychiatric patient who waited nearly 24 hours for help -- was arrested last month for lying about his credentials, The Post has learned.

John Perfetto, 59, who supervised a staff of nearly 100 hospital cops, was fired Sept. 8 and arrested a week later on felony charges for claiming he had a Bachelor of Arts degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a requirement he needed to get the job, according to sources and court records.

Perfetto was hired to the $86,528-a-year position Jan. 5, 2009, as part of a housecleaning purge meant to address allegations of patient abuse within the East Flatbush, Brooklyn, hospital's psychiatric unit and KCH managerial failures, which were detailed in a civil-rights lawsuit filed by the US Justice Department.

John Perfetto The federal probe followed the June 19, 2008, death of Esmin Green, 49, who collapsed in KCH's psychiatric emergency room after a 23-hour wait.

Perfetto -- who declined comment outside his Norwood, NJ, home -- oversaw the hospital cops who guard prisoners, watch over drug supplies and medical equipment, and protect the safety of patients and staff in the sprawling facility.

Queens man Syed Omair Ali leads feds on wild goose chase over bogus Times Square 'terror plot'

A Queens man led the Joint Terrorism Task Force on a wild goose chase for five months about a bogus plot to attack Times Square, tying up dozens of agents and costing the government more than $1 million, authorities said.

Syed Omair Ali, 25, even wore a wire to secretly record conversations with several associates he claimed were plotting to attack targets in New York City.

It turned out he was trying, because of a business dispute, to falsely finger an associate as a terrorist, officials said.

"The FBI took this information very seriously," Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Silver said in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Ali popped up on the feds' radar May 12 when he sent an email to the FBI's website claiming that he knew of a terrorist plot.

He identified one man who had "ties with the tribal guys back in Karachi, Pakistan, and has been planning on hurting our motherland," according to the criminal complaint.

Another person he identified planned "to fund those guys back in Karachi, get the appropriate training there and come back and do the maximum damage."

Silver said the investigation came to a head this month after Ali claimed that one of the plotters was traveling to Pakistan with a large sum of money and would be attending a terrorist training camp to prepare for the Times Square attack.

"I myself spent last Saturday night at FBI headquarters with probably 25 FBI and NYPD personnel and representatives of other agencies, and literally the agents worked around the clock," Silver said.

But investigators started doubting Ali's story and confronted him.

He folded like a cheap suit, admitting it was all a lie and that he was motivated in part to get one of the plotters in trouble because of a debt he owed the man, sources said.

Ali, a U.S. citizen, lived alone in Queens Village. His wife is in Pakistan. Unemployed, he formerly worked as a dispatcher for Pakistan International Airlines. He is being held without bail and faces up to eight years in prison for the allegedly false statements.

Defense attorney Kannan Sundaram did not return a call for comment.

'Surfing rabbi' rallies with British anti-Islam group outside Israel embassy

An Orthodox California rabbi running for state senate under the Tea Party banner marched yesterday with a far right-wing anti-Islam group in Britain outside the Israeli Embassy.

Rabbi Nachum Shifren, an ex-lifeguard known as the surfing rabbi, is considered a long shot to represent west Los Angeles in the California senate. He has spoken at Tea Party events and says he is a member of the group.

The English Defence League has said it wants to foster ties with the American Tea Party, a right-wing group that has also taken anti-Muslim and anti-immigration stances, and the rally, at which Shifren spoke, was meant as a first step toward that goal.

"I am coming to the UK to express my solidarity with the patriots in England who are on the front line in the war on jihad and stealth jihad," Shifren told the Jewish Chronicle last week. "Multiculturalists have brought us to the brink, insisting on degrading our own cultures while pandering to forces of darkness that threaten to completely transform our societal foundations."

According to the Chronicle, Shifren previously trained Israeli paratroopers and worked as a driver for Kach head Rabbi Meir Kahane.

Show of support for Israel

The rally was meant as a show of support for Israel and Shifren was invited to give a speech about Sharia law.

The EDL boasts a tiny Jewish division, but most Jewish groups in Britain reject its nationalist stances.

"EDL actions are violent and intimidatory, attacking police and random Asians. Any Jews thinking that they can shape such dangerous forces and find shelter there are utterly deluded," the Community Security Trust, a Jewish British group, has said.

At a rally earlier this month, 1,000 EDL activists clashed with police and anti-fascist demonstrators in Leicester.

Armed thug tried to rob salon, but brave off-duty cop getting hair done opened fire on crook

A heroic off-duty cop getting her hair done at a Brooklyn beauty salon got into a shootout Saturday night with an armed thug who burst into the shop, striking him at least once, police said.

Officer Feris Jones, who works in an NYPD crime lab in Jamaica, Queens, was a customer at Sabine's Hallway on Franklin Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant around 6:30 p.m. when the thug rushed into the business and demanded cash, police said.

Jones, 50, showing nerves of steel, immediately confronted the bandit, identified herself as a cop and ordered the man to drop his weapon.

Instead, the callous crook began blasting away, firing at least three times, but missing Jones, sources said.

Undaunted, Jones bravely returned fire, shooting twice and hitting the punk at least once, sources said. The injured man fled.

Cops later followed a trail of blood from the salon to the nearby Lafayette Gardens housing project. A search of the building came up empty and there were no arrests last night.

No one in the salon was injured.

Jones "was calm and just wanted to make sure no one was hit by the perp," a source said.

Police were trying to determine whether a woman who asked about prices just before the robbery and then held the door open for the robber was an accomplice.

The door is usually locked and customers have to be let in.

Neighbors in Jones' Flatlands apartment building said her fearlessness is well known.

Years ago, she held down and arrested a crazed man trying to set fire to the building.

"She's always been brave," said one neighbor, who declined to give his name. "I feel good living across from her."

Neighbors of the salon said crime has been on an upswing in the area.

"I begged the cops to have more of a presence here," said Joseph Adewumi, 36, who owns a lounge across the street. "Too many businesses have been robbed and people are fed up."

Jones was treated and released from Kings County Hospital. "Her hair looked fine to me," a police source said of Jones' coif, post-shootout

U.S. lawmakers concerned by professor's anti-Israel remarks

Video of a September 3 rally in Washington, D.C., shows tenured literature
professor Kaukab Siddique saying Israel must be destroyed, if possible by peaceful means.

Lincoln University History Professor Kaukab Siddique is in the eye of a new storm in the United States, after several statements he made calling for the destruction of Israel prompted US senators to urge an investigation in the matter.

Speaking at a recent Labor Day rally, Siddique said: "We must stand united to defeat, to destroy, to dismantle Israel – if possible by peaceful means... For the Jews, I would say, 'See what could happen to you if the Muslims wake up.' And I say to the Muslims, Dear brothers and sisters – unite and rise up against this hydra-headed monster which calls itself Zionism.'"

Siddique's statements followed several articles in which he questions the validity of the Holocaust and calling it "a hoax."

Originally from Pakistan, Siddique, 67, is a vocal critic of what he calls "Israel's record of human-rights abuses in the Palestinian territories." Nevertheless, he maintains that his Labor Day statements have been misunderstood.

'I don't believe in laying low'
The professor's remarks sparked outrage among pro-Israeli groups and as Lincoln University is a Pennsylvania State-sponsored school, State Senator Daylin Leach – and numerous other members of the State Assembly – have urged Lincoln president Ivory Nelson to ensure the professor's "anti-Semitic diatribes" had not made their way into the university's classrooms.

"We support academic freedom and certainly a professor has the right to criticize Israel, or any other entity or policy he wishes," they wrote. "However… the Holocaust is not a theory or opinion. It is historically documented fact, denied only by those with a hateful or anti-Semitic agenda."

A Lincoln statement said it had "not been made aware of any instance in which Siddique's views were taught in his classes or shared in any public forums on campus."

Siddique said Thursday that he stands by his statements and "would not back down from detractors out to threaten academic freedom," adding that he had the support of his faculty and students and that he would continue to speak his mind, despite pressure from those who have referred to him as an "anti-Semite."

"I got a little fired and said a few things that were pretty strong," said Siddique. "That doesn't mean I wouldn't say them again. I don't believe in laying low."

"When I refer critically to the 'Jews' I am referring to the current leadership of the 'state of Israel' and to their major supporters, not to the Jewish race as a whole," he said in an email to CBN News.

"Most of my readers and listeners understand this; if it was taken to mean otherwise, then I offer my apologies to those I have offended.

"I am not anti-Semitic. . . . I am certainly not hostile to, nor do I discriminate against the Jewish people because of their lineage," he maintained.

Regulators shut down 7 banks

Bank regulators closed seven banks Friday, bringing the total of number of bank failures for the year to 139, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said.

Friday marked the largest number of banks closed since July 23, when the FDIC also closed seven banks, according to the FDIC's website.

The closed banks are the First Arizona Savings in Scottsdale, Arizona; First Bank of Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Florida; The First National Bank of Barnesville, in Barnesville, Georgia; First Suburban National Bank in Maywood, Illinois; The Gordon Bank in Gordon, Georgia; Hillcrest Bank in Overland Park, Kansas; and Progress Bank of Florida in Tampa, Florida.

All deposits were taken over by other financial institutions for six of the seven banks.

The FDIC said it couldn't find a financial institution to take over the banking operations of First Arizona Savings.

"As a result, checks to depositors for their insured funds will be mailed on Monday, October 25," the FDIC said in a statement about First Arizona Savings on Friday.

First Arizona Savings had $272.2 million in assets and $198.8 million in deposits.

First Bank of Jacksonville had $81 million in assets and $77.3 million in deposits.

The First National Bank of Barnesville had $131.4 million in assets and $127.1 million in deposits.

First Suburban National Bank had $148.7 million in assets and $140 million in deposits.

The Gordon Bank had $29.4 million in assets and $26.7 million in deposits.

Hillcrest Bank had $1.65 billion in assets and $1.54 billion in deposits.

Progress Bank of Florida had $110.7 million in assets and $101.3 million in deposits.