State of Crime

Why can't Israel prosecute their own criminals?

Israel's mobsters grow more daring
Gangsters battle each other using bomb blasts with passers-by caught in the crossfire

By RON HELLER
Associated Press

JERUSALEM - The extradition of a suspected Israeli mob boss to face drug charges in Miami and New York is drawing new attention to Israel's increasingly brazen underworld, where gangsters have bombed busy streets and fired anti-tank missiles.

Israel's mob turf is so dangerous that the State Department has issued a travel advisory warning Americans of the dangers of the infighting.

One top gangster, Zeev Rosenstein, was extradited on Monday for involvement in a drug ring that allegedly distributed more than 1 million Ecstasy pills in Miami and New York. He's expected to be arraigned in federal court in Miami today.

U.S. prosecutors have called the short, squat Rosenstein one of the world's most wanted drug traffickers, and he's long been No. 1 on Israel's most-wanted list.

The best-known of Israel's underworld kingpins, he has done only one stretch in prison.

Showing footage of Rosenstein boarding an El Al Israel Airlines plane early Monday, Channel 10 TV called the extradition "the end of an era of Israeli crime" and "the final chapter in a 20-year cat-and-mouse game between Rosenstein and Israeli police."