Moses “Mark” Stern, who was the feds’ Confidential Informant

They should have just Googled the guy.

A simple Web search would have shown state Sen. Malcolm Smith and City Councilman Dan Halloran that they were getting into bed with a shady developer who lost a $126 million lawsuit over a failed real-estate project.

Moses “Mark” Stern, who was the feds’ confidential informant against the pols, took out a massive loan from Citigroup to buy 11 shopping malls in 2007 — and his company promptly went bankrupt, according to court documents.

Citigroup sued Stern and a judge ruled in favor of the bank, records show.

Stern — a longtime pal of Smith — wore a wire and caught the lawmakers allegedly talking about bribing city Republican leaders to get Smith on the Republican mayoral ticket.

 

The Satmar Hasid from Monsey teamed up with an undercover federal agent in the sting as part of a secret cooperation agreement.

Stern, a father of nine who lives in a gaudy mansion, has a penchant for expensive liquor, cigars and fancy cars.

“Maseratis and Ferraris — he likes those,” one source said. “He definitely likes his cars.”

He pays for daily visits from cleaning ladies and has stacks of cash in his home, the source said.

“There are times he’ll have 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 100 grand in the house,” the associate said.

Stern, who was holed up yesterday, could not be reached for comment.

He received several food deliveries and a masseuse stopped by to give his wife a rubdown.

Stern routinely gets close to pols to demonstrate status in the class-conscious world of New York’s Hasidic communities, sources said.

“He used to target every politician. They all knew him. When [Eric] Schneiderman was running for AG in that primary, Stern took him all around Monsey and Spring Valley,” said the source.

Stern popped on the feds’ radar after the failed deal.

Federal agents raided Stern’s Monsey office in January 2010 and took away 20 cartons of documents, said a source. The escrow agent in the deal was indicted on fraud charges later that year.

In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s arrests, Stern told people close to him that the FBI was close to making a move.

“He told people that there’s a big bust coming from the FBI,” according a former associate in Monsey.

Stern is also a cousin of Tuvia Stern — the notorious swindler who threw lavish a bar mitzvah in his jail cell in the Tombs in 2009, sources said.

Before he was locked up, Tuvia spent 20 years on the lam after he was busted in 1989 for stealing $1.7 million.

Smith’s attorney, Gerald Shargel, said Stern’s shady dealings show the case is not as bulletproof as the feds claim.           NY POST