The FBI finally called the Jewish mafia!
"Russian mob at center of elite gambling ring, US says; Alleged scheme touched worlds of art, celebrity" by Tom Hays | Associated Press, April 21, 2013
NEW YORK — It is a case teaming with colorful characters: a reputed Russian mob boss once accused in an Olympic scandal, a wealthy art world impresario who hung out with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, and a woman named Molly Bloom who gained a celebrity following by hosting them at high-stakes poker games.
US authorities allege all had roles in a sprawling scheme by two related Russian-American organized crime enterprises. Prosecutors say in recent years the operations laundered at least $100 million in illegal gambling proceeds through hundreds of bank accounts and shell companies in Cyprus and the United States.
The case against more than 30 defendants, announced last week by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, illustrates the insatiable appetite for sports betting around the globe — and the enormous potential for illicit profits.
The steep rise in wealth among the upper class in the former Soviet Union has driven that potential to new heights, said Mark Galeotti, a Russian organized crime expert at New York University....
The tentacles of the scheme reached to Trump Tower, the Fifth Avenue high-rise where prosecutors say a US ringleader lived in an apartment one floor below Donald Trump’s own place.
Of course, he had no idea what was going on literally right under his nose.
There, he oversaw a network of Internet sites that formed ‘‘the world’s largest sports book’’ that catered ‘‘almost exclusively to oligarchs living in the Ukraine and the Russian Federation,’’ prosecutors said.
On one of the thousands of conversations intercepted on the defendants’ cellphones, the leader could be heard warning a customer who owed money that ‘‘he should be careful, lest he be tortured or found underground,’’ a prosecutor said.
The ring paid Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov — already under indictment in a separate US case accusing him of bribing Olympic figure skating judges at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City — $20 million in gambling proceeds in a two-month period alone, court papers said.
In another transaction in late 2010, the same man wired $3 million from a Cyprus bank account to another account in the United States, the papers said.
Related: Keeping Current on the Cyprus Crisis
I haven't, but.... you can see why it was a concern in my paper, right?
The new indictment naming Tokhtakhounov called him a ‘‘vor’’ — translated “thief’’ — and comparable to a Mafia godfather. His role, the court papers allege, was to use his ‘‘substantial influence in the criminal underworld to resolve disputes among criminals.’’
US investigators following the trans-Atlantic money trail also uncovered a related scheme involving a Manhattan art gallery and high-stakes illegal card games in New York City — one played in the Plaza Hotel. The games attracted professional athletes, Hollywood luminaries, and business executives, some who ran up debts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Related: The Mossad Moles at Harvard
Mossad Agent Behind Art Heists
The Gardner Gambit
I'll bet they do know who has them now, and you can see why my newspaper is so interested in art. Everything in there is part of the agenda-pushing intelligence operation and a mind-manipulating psy-op.
Authorities did not name the players. But press reports linked actors such as DiCaprio and Ben Affleck to the games run in Los Angeles by Bloom. And DiCaprio was photographed with Hillel ‘‘Helly’’ Nahmad, a friend charged in the case.
Didn't he just win an Oscar for that fawning public relations piece of CIA propaganda?
Yup, Benny is part of the tribe.
A spokesman for both film stars declined to comment on whether they had cooperated with authorities. Playing poker is not a crime, but it is illegal to profit by promoting it.
Nahmad, 35, comes from an art-dealing family whose collection includes 300 Picassos worth $900 million, according to Forbes.
FBI agents Tuesday raided his gallery on Madison Avenue — a seller of works by Chagall, Dali, Degas, Monet, Matisse, and Warhol — and seized computers and records.
Prosecutors allege that, along with laundering cash, Nahmad wired more than $1 million from his father’s bank account in Switzerland to a US bank account to finance gambling.
Bloom, 34, moved her poker games from Los Angeles to New York to cater to Wall Street financiers, prosecutors said.
Sigh. They gamble with your money and loot you, and then they go gamble with the loot they stole. F***ing sick! But the casinos are a-comin' to save our economy!
But she reportedly went back to the West Coast after two men — described as ‘‘Eastern European thugs’’ in one report — roughed her up at her Upper West Side apartment. Her lawyer at the time said she decided give up poker for her own safety.
Both Nahmad and Bloom pleaded not guilty Friday in a federal courtroom in Manhattan that could barely accommodate the defendants. She entered her plea from a back row. She and Nahmad are free on bail.
What?
‘‘We do not believe Mr. Nahmad knowingly violated the law,’’ said his attorneys, Benjamin Brafman and Paul Shechtman. Bloom’s attorney declined to comment.
A judge has scheduled a trial for the summer of 2014.
Why so far away? A few witnesses and others need to be done away with and disappeared?
--more--"
Could this item have anything to do with the Boston Marathon Bombing and Russia? Sure was an odd time to see it.
Related: The Jewish Mob in America
Boston Globe Covers Up Israeli Ecstasy Ring
Boston Globe Protecting Jewish Mafia
That is what mouthpieces do.
I expect coverage of this case to fade away, just like New Jersey.
