The following is a Ynet article:
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.
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.
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(Source: Ynet)
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10 Responses
After reading this news account, I now know less about the story than I did before I read it.
I dont thing one just hands a check of $600,000 before they check they are genuine!!!!
Weird story!!!!!!!
This is not suprising!
How easy it would be to take a check either from a desk or mailbox and cash it overseas or on the black market or money changing services.
Always confirm from the organization that it was received and ask for an official receipt
I made $500 donations years ago to truly worthwhile organizations by actually going to their offices and still I didn’t get a receipt in the mail or even a thank you
Who knows if someone also walked off with my checks as it seems in this case.
To the Editor: Has the legitimacy of this article been verified? I agree with #1. There are a lot of inconsistencies in this article that lead me to believe that the whole thing may be bogus.
Taken from a comment on another site:
It is a simple story . The millionaire gave the money that the rav says he never received. The millionaire started making threats against the rav and attempted to collect the 600,000. He used the services of shady characters to make the threats and extortion attempts against the rav. The rav went to police , who had him play along, and meet with the extortioners at a hotel where they were arrested by undercover police dressed as wait staff . At the meeting there were recording devices that recorded the extortion demands against the rav.
Thanks for copying the story from Ynet, Your version is really the same but at least in a kosher newspaper/
Let this serve as a lesson to everyone contenplating writing 600k check to tzedaka.
#7 – what is the lesson? Only give tzedaka in small amounts? Only give large amounts if you hand deliver the check to the Rosh Yeshiva/Executive Director and film the exchange, or better yet, deposit it directly into the organization’s bank account so it can’t get lost or forgotten?
Shouldn’t large sums be sent directly to the organization’s bank via wire transfer? In any case, if a check got ‘lost’, it’s more likely to be a case where the sender was not careful enough to insure the delivery/mailing. You’d blame the sender, not the recipient. In any case, if the check was cashed by someone other than the intended recipient, that would be more of a cause of indignation by the donor. Or, the check really did get lost and no one cashed it in or deposited it. So no loss there. Just put a stop on the check before a stranger gets a hold of it. The donor could get upset if the recipient didn’t use the funds properly. You see where this is going? I don’t get this story at all.
@ladler: apushatayid simply meant that you should only give tzedaka in cash