Israeli-Russian Drug Ring

The Jerusalem Post, Internet News Article, February 25th, 2000:

New York police crack Israeli-Russian Ecstasy ring

By Marilyn Henry

NEW YORK (February 25) - Israeli and Russian organized-crime syndicates control the entry of the "club drug" Ecstasy into the US, federal authorities in New York said yesterday, after cracking a multimillion-dollar international drug ring.

Six Israelis were at the heart of the international network, the authorities said.

Sixty-one people have been arrested in the last two weeks, or are being sought, as part of the ring, whose business stretched from New York to California and Florida, federal and New York authorities announced on Wednesday.

They alleged that the drugs were smuggled into the US by six Israeli nationals, whose base was a flat in Forest Hills, Queens.

"This is an extremely significant case, because it shuts off one of the most active supply lines for Ecstasy in the New York region, distributing as many as 100,000 tablets a week," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Authorities seized 300,000 tablets of the drug, worth an estimated $7.5 million, and said the ring pumped some 100,000 pills a week into metropolitan New York.

The drug, which reportedly was made in the Netherlands and Belgium, is a hybrid of the hallucinogen mescaline and the stimulant amphetamine chemically known as MDMA.

"This case demonstrates that the Netherlands and Belgium have become the main location for manufacturing and exporting MDMA," Donnie Marshall, acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a statement.

"To add to the globalization of this problem, Israeli and Russian organized-crime syndicates have gained control of the smuggling of MDMA from Europe into the US," he said.

A DEA spokesman was unable to elaborate on or substantiate the assertions about organized-crime syndicates.

Authorities had not contacted the Israeli Consulate in New York about the arrests, and the consulate had no information on the alleged smugglers.

Police in Jerusalem said they had been informed of the arrests.

"As in all cases we are notified by Interpol when Israelis are arrested overseas," said Ofer Sivan, deputy spokesman for the Israel Police.

The arrests were the latest among dozens of Israelis said to have been detained on drug charges in New York in the last year.

Last April, federal and state authorities began an undercover investigation after a man in Queens -identified as an Israeli named Oshri Amar, 23 - allegedly was selling large quantities of Ecstasy.

Among those arrested were five Israelis who were the alleged principals of the network. They were identified as Igal Malka, 37; Yariv Azulay, 27; Oshri Ganchrski, 30; Eyal Levy, 26; and Robert Levy, 36. Amar was a fugitive and believed to be in Florida, authorities said.

They face multiple charges, including conspiracy to sell and distribute a controlled substance, and each faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

(Margot Dudkevitch contributed to this report.)

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