Operation Bid Rig – FBI Sting
Posted on 28 July 2009 by Stenberg-Tendys W.L. in Uncategorized
Round 3 of a public corruption investigation, known as ‘Operation Bid Rig’, which has spanned three decades, resulted in more than 130 arrests. It has ballooned into one of the biggest bribery and corruption sweeps in the turbulent history of New Jersey.
Over 200 FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents made early morning arrests and executed search warrants throughout the state of New Jersey. The arrests included three mayors, many officials and rabbis.
The informant was a real-estate developer, Solomon Dwek, who had been arrested and charged with defrauding a bank of $25 million in 2006. The 36 year-old religious-school head and philanthropist remains at large, on a $10 million bond. After FBI agents trained Dwek to act as an undercover agent, he helped obtain hundreds of hours of video and audio recordings. Dwek will receive credit from federal prosecutors for his cooperation.
The investigation revealed extensive activity, between New York and Israel and Switzerland, cloaked behind a façade of religion, with religious leaders heading money-laundering crews. Fifteen connected international money laundering rings were involved, including 5 rabbis and their associates. Dirty money, related to criminal activity, was allegedly cleaned from across the world, under the covering of religious charity organizations.
Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum was also arrested and charged as a broker of kidneys, taken from vulnerable people who were enticed to give up the organ up. Rosenbaum made a profit of $150,000 per kidney. He was known as ‘the kidney salesman’ and called himself the ‘matchmaker.’ He admitted to having brokered kidneys for a decade.
“Corruption among the politicians was a way of life, with everyone wanting a piece of the action,” Ralph Marra Jr., acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said. “They existed in an ethics-free zone and exploited giant loop-holes in election campaign rules”. There are few whistle blowers, with many people feeding off the criminal activity, as corruption is widespread and pervasive.
A New Jersey resident said, “I’ll tell you one thing — it never gets boring here. But sometimes I wish it would.”
