Israeli police arrest 70 in major raid on organized crime overseas

Meyer Lansky, the criminal
mastermind who was not as
powerful as he is believed
to have been.
The Jewish Mafia may be dead in the U.S. -- or at the very least is a mere echo of what it had once been back at the dawn of organized crime, when mobsters like Lucky, Costello and Anastasia worked alongside Meyer, Bugsy, Lepke and Gurrah, aka Jacob Shapiro.

The Jewish American mob shared in the lucrative rackets of bootlegging back in the golden age of the Mafia, and many Jews were even hit men in Murder Incorporated.

But while they seem to have dropped out of sight in the U.S., they are alive and well in Israel -- or had been until a recent bust reminiscent of the one we had here back in January of the Italian Mafia.

In the one of the largest anti-organized crime raids in recent years, police arrested 70 suspects from across Israel overnight Tuesday, reports The Jerusalem Post.

Hundreds of officers led by Coastal Police officers raided addresses in several cities, from Nazareth to Eilat, after two undercover agents spent months purchasing weapons and narcotics from the suspects, police said.

Gurrah worked with Lepke at
Murder Inc.
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The investigation began after an undercover police handler helped out, uncovering and finding evidence related to dozens of crimes, such as purchasing a MAG machine gun, rifles, handguns and bombs – "weapons criminals intended to use on one another, but which also posed a real threat to members of the public who could have been caught in the crossfire."

Dozens of kilograms of heroin, cocaine, hashish and thousands of Ecstasy pills also were among the crimes taking place by the Jewish Mafia, reports The Jerusalem Post.


“Some of the suspects are influential organized crime figures,” a police spokesman said. Several are suspected of attacking police and threatening the lives of officers.

Police impounded luxurious jeeps and all-terrain vehicles in the raid, as well as water bikes. The Tax Authority froze bank accounts and seized real state assets.

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