https://www.timesofisrael.com/topic/organized-crime-in-israel/

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From left: Moshe Matsri, Yuval Geringer, a Matsri associate awaiting trial and Yaron Cohen, Matsri's associate in Amsterdam

Israeli TV has its own mafia show, The Arbitrator. It depicts the everyday life of an Israeli crime family, and it's a hit. Thematically, it borrows from The Godfather, dramatizing the tensions between family, piety and violence. The title character is a vicious killer who mediates disputes by citing the Torah.

Until his arrest, in July 2013, Matsri's life embodied the same tensions.
To Israeli gangsters, he was "Moshe the Religious." He sent his children to private Jewish schools and belonged to Bet Yosseph, an Orthodox synagogue on Ventura Boulevard, within walking distance of his house.He did not conduct business on the Sabbath. Investigators noticed that their wiretaps went dead on Friday afternoon, and calls did not resume until sundown on Saturday.

At the same time, according to voluminous court filings, Matsri also was a drug trafficker and brutal enforcer. On one wiretapped call, he instructed one of his lieutenants in the art of intimidation.
"Tell him, 'On Monday, if I don't get my payment, you'll continue paying me for the rest of your life,'?" he said. He advised his lieutenant to "bring some baboon with you" — meaning a gang member to act as muscle.
"Matsri is very well respected — and feared — in the Israeli community," says Lt. Stephan Margolis, who heads LAPD's organized-crime unit.

Matsri liked expensive watches and drove a BMW. Otherwise, he lived relatively modestly in a four-bedroom stucco house with his wife and children.
He now sits in a federal detention center awaiting sentencing for drug trafficking, money laundering and extortion. He did not respond to a letter sent to him in jail by L.A. Weekly, and his attorney, Dean Steward, declined to comment.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration spent eight months pursuing Matsri, an investigation that spanned the globe. Agents had cooperation from the FBI, LAPD and police agencies in the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and Israel.
Prosecutors in the United States and Israel indicted a dozen defendants, including Matsri and his brother, Shmuel Matsri, who was caught with bomb-making materials at his home in a suburb of Tel Aviv. Investigators believe the brothers were planning to plant a bomb in someone's car.

Police maintain that Matsri was the U.S. leader of the Abergil network. One of Israel's top crime families, the Abergils have been tied to murder, embezzlement, extortion and drug trafficking in Israel, the United States and Europe.
To investigators, the international operation was a major victory. But for more than a year, they kept it under seal. Only now is the story being told.

http://www.laweekly.com/news/lynwoo...by-mayor-pro-tem-edwin-hernandez-9164037