The group landed in Los Angeles late Wednesday in a plane in which they were the only passengers, save for a squad of U.S. marshals.
All five were extradited from Israel after a protracted legal battle, to stand trial in Los Angeles federal court on charges ranging from murder and massive embezzlement to money laundering, racketeering and running a large L.A.-based Ecstasy ring.
Most notorious among the five alleged mobsters are Yitzhak Abergil, also known as the Friend, the Big Friend and the Man from the South, who has been described as the boss of the operation, and his brother, Meir Abergil, allgedly in charge of finances and debt collection.
Also extradited from Israel were Sasson Barashy, Moshe Malul and Israel Ozifa—who is known as Israel the Tall or the Tall One.
In addition, a federal grand jury indicted Yoram El-Al, —the Wounded, and Luis Sandoval—Barney Twin or Hog. The latter was charged as a member of the San Fernando Valley-based Vineland Boyz street gang, accused as the main distributors of the Ecstasy ring and as enforcers for the Israeli organizers.
After the 2008 grand jury indictment, Israeli police arrested the Abergil brothers and their associates.
An Israeli district court found the accused “extraditable” in 2009, the defendants appealed, and last month the Israeli Supreme Court rejected their petition.
The 77-page, 32-count indictment, made available to The Journal, reads like a super-charged criminal thriller in which law enforcement officials across Europe, Japan, Northern Africa and the United States appear to have recorded every phone conversation and hotel meeting among the defendants.
Israeli courts have rarely agreed to extradite their citizens to other countries, in line with the Jewish tradition of not turning over Jews for trial in “Christian” courts.
In this case, U.S. and Israeli officials came to an agreement that if found guilty, the defendants would not receive the death penalty and would serve any sentences in Israeli prisons.
Israeli police and media have frequently described the Abergils as bosses of one the country’s most powerful crime syndicates, with extensive overseas operations. However, the defendants, who have maintained their innocence throughout, have a different view.
In a recent interview on Israeli television, cited by the Los Angeles Times, Meir Abergil said, “We’re peanuts compared to the mafias they have in America. They have the Mexican cartels, the Italians, the Irish mafia, the Colombians. Who are we? Nothing, cockroaches.”
The Los Angeles Police Department has been concerned with Israeli crime in the city since the 1970s, as Deputy Chief Michael Downing, who heads the LAPD’s Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau, and Captain Greg Hall, who commands the Major Crimes Division, told The Journal some months ago.
While stressing the cooperation of the established Jewish and Israeli communities with the police, the two officers noted a gradual increase in crimes by Israelis, mostly in such white-collar felonies as money laundering, tax evasion, real estate and financial frauds, but also in narcotics trafficking.
“Israeli crime here tends to be quite sophisticated and hard to track,” Hall said. “We’re worried about what may be going on that we don’t know about.”
