Forward
A few months ago, Israeli police planning a sting were hard-pressed to find a convincing small-time dealer who could buy large quantities of drugs without arousing suspicion. In the end, they settled on a novel solution: a Hasidic man who would claim he was buying for students at his yeshiva.
The case ended up netting the arrests of 15 men in the Israeli town of Lod. The arrested will face trial next month on charges of possession and supply of illegal substances. The operation was given the name Ketoret Samim, a double entendre referring both to drugs in modern Hebrew and to a talmudic mixing of incense in ancient Hebrew. The operation's success was thanks to footage recorded from cameras secreted in the long black coat of Shlomo Treitel, a 34-year-old Hasid from Netanya who is a community police officer.
"My wife didn't know what I was doing, but when I told her, she said that she knows I'm guided by our rebbe, so I won't come to any harm," he told the Forward.
On some 30 occasions, and spending $14,000 altogether, Treitel went to dealers in Lod, notorious for its Arab-controlled drug trading. He bought hard and soft drugs. His story was that the students in his yeshiva were ba'alei teshuvah (secular Jews who have turned to more observant lives), and he had come to the conclusion that he could well cash in on their habits by becoming a small-scale dealer. [...]
So we frummies are now the classic stereotype for criminals?
ReplyDeleteOy lanu ki chatanu
Actually I think it is just the opposite. That we frummies are not stereotyped as being police or "friendly" with the government and thus trustworthy to criminal types.
ReplyDeleteOn the same topic, Judith Weiss in Kesher Talk quotes from this book by the brother of Pablo Escobar the Colombian drug lord
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Accountants-Story-Inside-Violent-Medell%C3%ADn/dp/1600244750
Laundering money could be very expensive, costing as much as 50 percent of 60 percent of the total value. So there were always people willing to do deals. it wasn't just Pablo who had to launder money; it was everybody working in this business. We all knew the people who would make deals.
Among the groups well known for cleaning money were the Jewish people with the black hats, long curled sideburns, and black coats. One of our pilots used their services regularly -- because they only charged 6 percent. They wouldn't get involved with drugs, so to work with them you had to have a convincing story of where the money came from . . . .
At that point the money in the suitcase belonged to him. I had two huge guys there with handguns and this little guy would take that suitcase with millions of dollars in cash by himself and wheel it through the streets of New York.
http://www.keshertalk.com/archives/2009/05/the_accountant.php
""My wife didn't know what I was doing, but when I told her, she said that she knows I'm guided by our rebbe, so I won't come to any harm," he told the Forward."
ReplyDeleteDoesn't she mean the Ribbono Shel Olam rather than some rebbe?
Many Chassidim have a very special relationship with their Rebbe. Their Rebbe is for them both a spiritual guide and a posek. In all actuality would it have been any different if he said that he was guided by his posek and thus his wife knew no harm would come of it?
ReplyDeleteThat is the trust that many Orthodox Jews simply put into their Rabbanim. We believe that our Rabbanim opperate under Daat Torah, and thus are able to tell us the proper way to act in this life. Following one's Rav is a mitzvah. It says in numerous places in the Gemarra and other holy books that one is never harmed on his way to do a mitzvah. It thus takes a level of bitachon in HaKodesh Baruch Hu that He will portect such a person, but ultimately it starts with a Daat Torah telling us that we are doing a mitzvah.
Mekubal said:
ReplyDeleteIt says in numerous places in the Gemarra and other holy books that one is never harmed on his way to do a mitzvah.
===================
The above is simply not true
Pesachim (8b)
But R. Eleazar said: Those sent [to perform] a religious duty do not suffer harm?4 — Where the injury is probable it is different, for it is said, And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take a heifer with thee, etc.5
But isn't this entrapment?
ReplyDeleteI thought a cop is not allowed to do illegal things or to get somebody else to do illegal things.
shoshi said...
ReplyDeleteBut isn't this entrapment?
============
Wikipedia says:
Entrapment is the act of a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense which would be illegal and the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit.[1] In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal guilt.
The article says that the rebbe involved is the Sanzer Rebbe, Tzvi Elimelech Halberstam who is related to the Bobov rebbe(s) who had people in the community who had their own major drug involvements in the 90’s
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.latimes.com/1997-06-19/news/mn-4880_1_colombian-drug
Apparently, the definition of "entrapment" varies according to countries.
ReplyDeleteIn the US and other countries, there is the condition that the person would not have done otherwise, so evidence gained through this kind of procedure can be used, in other countries it is strictly forbidden for agents to engage in illegal activity (or prompt someone to do so). However, the courts do not always completely disregard evidence gained this way...
Personnaly, I think it is a problem to "break the law in order to find lawbreakers".
Not only, because it happens time and again that the agents actually promote the lawbreaking (e.g. terror cells getting their arms through government agents) but also because it could easily lead to abuse (trap setting).
"The article says that the rebbe involved is the Sanzer Rebbe, Tzvi Elimelech Halberstam who is related to the Bobov rebbe(s) who had people in the community who had their own major drug involvements in the 90’s"
ReplyDeleteUh, I think lumping the two "drug involvements" together isn't called for without a big l'havdil.
Daas Torah said...
ReplyDeleteThe above is simply not true
Pesachim (8b)
But R. Eleazar said: Those sent [to perform] a religious duty do not suffer harm?4 — Where the injury is probable it is different, for it is said, And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take a heifer with thee, etc.5
I beg to differ. On the previous amud you fin the Klal, "שלוחי מצוה אינן נוזיקין" Here on 8b you find the Prat... however you leave out the specific conditions which came in the lines above this.
Chullin 142A and Kiddushin 39b where the damage was caused by using a broken ladder, and the reason given, specifically in Kiddushin, "But R. Elazar said, " Those who are engaged in a mitzvah are never harmed, either when going or returning. It was a broken ladder, so that injury
was expected, and where injury is expected one must not rely on a miracle."
We see from this that when one can expect to receive injury on account of one's actions,this general statement does not apply. However that does not mean that is not true. Nor does it mean that it doesn't apply to the above case, where a policeman can be expected to take all necessary precaution.
shoshi said...
ReplyDeleteBut isn't this entrapment? I thought a cop is not allowed to do illegal things or to get somebody else to do illegal things.
This statement truly bothers me. What bothers me about it, is that it comes here, in the case of Jewish sting operation against possibly non-Jewish drug traffickers(aka people who were probably already involved in illegal activity). However, I saw no one bring this up in regard to R' Kassin and the others arrested for money laundering.
Where in that case there was no evidence of prior criminal activity. But rather a moser, the son of a respected Rav of the Syrian community, was used to persuade those Rabbanim into criminal activity. Only weeks later did we find out that R' Yosef and R' Deri were also approached by this person and turned him down.
Entrapment to me would seem to be offering a lifeline, albeit an illegal one, to people, who in difficult financial times, are trying to keep various institutions afloat for the sake of their communities.
I am not excusing their behaviour, I am just wondering why the same measure was not used toward them? Something of which I myself am guilty which is why this disturbs me so much.
Mekubal said
ReplyDeleteIt says in numerous places in the Gemarra and other holy books that one is never harmed on his way to do a mitzvah. It thus takes a level of bitachon in HaKodesh Baruch Hu that He will portect such a person, but ultimately it starts with a Daat Torah telling us that we are doing a mitzvah.
DT said;
The above is simply not true.
Mekubal wrote:
I beg to differ. On the previous amud you fin the Klal, "שלוחי מצוה אינן נוזיקין" Here on 8b you find the Prat... however you leave out the specific conditions which came in the lines above this
DT said:
You made an absolute statement that "one is never harmed on his way to do a mitzva". I said that is not true because the gemora says that when one goes to do a mitzva he is not harmed by unexpected damage. The gemora is thus saying that one is not protected where one is reasonable or likely to be hurt.
Your absolute statement that "one is never harmed on his way to do a mitzva" is not true. If you want to rephrase you assertion and make it conditional then I would have no problem with it.
Mekubal: Your reaction puzzles me.
ReplyDeleteBecause.
1) I am not from the US (nor is english-my mothertongue)
2) So I use the information I get in the "frum microcosmos" to learn more about the US.
3) When I read about the Spinka arrests and how they apparently came to be, I was puzzled.
4) When I learned about the Dwek investigation I was equally puzzled
5) I learned (as a child) that a police officer (or someone acting on the government's behalf) is stricly forbidden to engage in any illegal activity. you can have undercover agents, but they have to be completely passive as far as criminal activity is concerned.
6) I now checked in Wikipaedia and this is indeed the law of my country.
7) However, many countries - including the US - have a different definition of entrapment: the agents are apparently allowed to engage in illegal activities or cause someone to engage in illegal activities, and they only have to proof that he would also do it for someone else.
8) So I learned something new about the US legal system. (By the way, Brafman mentions this also in his speech at the "Aguda Asifa".
9) Before, I thought the prosecutor would use Dwek's material as a bargaining chip in order to obtain a plea bargain (since in my country, this kind of evidence would be discarded in court, I suppose)
PS: I was equally puzzled when, in Germany, a famous personality was arrested for tax fraud because german authorities had bought a whole CD of stolen Data from an employee of a bank in Liechtenstein.
ReplyDeleteHere also, I could not imagine, how the evidence could be used in court.
But I imagine this is not how it works. I suppose it all amounts to a psychological game (who blinks first?).
Prosecutors try and make people believe they could be framed, the fraudsters confess and get a kind of plea bargain.
In the Spinka and Dwek cases, I suppose the prosecution did not only rely on the informant's evidence.
I suppose, they have a lot of other data (movements on bank accounts, etc.), and they just use the informant's evidence to prove that "theoretically, they could do a fraud", so if there is no good explanation for the capital movements, they will be framed.
D"T,
ReplyDeleteI retract the absolute and make it a conditional statement.