An investigation into the sale of black-market kidneys and fake Gucci handbags evolved into a sweeping probe of political corruption in New Jersey, ensnaring more than 40 people Thursday, including three mayors, two state lawmakers and several rabbis.
Evenfor a state with a rich history of graft, the scale of wrongdoingalleged was breathtaking. An FBI official called corruption “a cancerthat is destroying the core values of this state.”
Federal prosecutors said the investigation initially focused on a money laundering network that operated between Brooklyn, N.Y.; Deal, N.J.; and Israel. The network is alleged to have laundered tens of millions of dollars through Jewish charities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey.
Prosecutors then used an informant in that investigation to help them go after corrupt politicians. The informant — a real estate developer charged with bank fraudthree years ago — posed as a crooked businessman and paid a string ofpublic officials tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to getapprovals for buildings and other projects in New Jersey, authoritiessaid.
Among the 44 people arrested were the mayors of Hoboken, Ridgefield and Secaucus, Jersey City’s deputy mayor,and two state assemblymen. A member of the governor’s cabinet resignedafter agents searched his home, though he was not arrested. All but oneof the officeholders are Democrats.
Also, fiverabbis from New York and New Jersey — two of whom lead congregations inDeal — were accused of laundering millions of dollars, some of it fromthe sale of counterfeit goods and bankruptcy fraud, authorities said.
In rounding up the defendants, FBIand IRS agents raided a synagogue Thursday morning in Deal, a wealthyoceanfront city of Mediterranean-style mansions, with a largepopulation of Syrian Jews.
Thosearrested included Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn, who was chargedwith conspiring to arrange the sale of an Israeli citizen’s kidney for$160,000 for a transplant for the informant’s fictitious uncle.Rosenbaum was quoted as saying he had been arranging the sale ofkidneys for 10 years.