Tel Aviv, Israel – District Police have arrested three Jewish men suspected of smuggling over $1 million worth of cocaine.
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One of the suspects, a resident of Kfar Chabad, is suspected of orchestrating the deal. The two messengers, Yeshiva dropouts, residents of Bnei Brak, were arrested at the Ben Gurion Airport after authorities found 10 and a half kilogram of pure cocaine in their suitcases.
Police were tipped off a few weeks ago that the two Bnei Brak residents, both in their 20s, were sent to Brazil to pick up the drugs. The two were arrested by undercover cops immediately upon their return. Neither of the suspects were dressed in ultra-Orthodox garb.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said on Thursday that the two former seminary students, aged 21 and 20, were stopped at Israel’s international airport overnight.
He says police officers found about 22 pounds (10 kilograms) of cocaine in their luggage.
Rosenfeld says police had been tracking the two men for some time. He says Israeli police informed their Brazilian counterparts ahead of time to help identify the pair’s suppliers.
Police say the cocaine was headed to the Israeli market. Israeli police estimate its street value at around $1 million.
Video below at the court Credit: Kikar.net
Tel Aviv police showing the suitcases.
They were probably given it by some anonymous go-between and didn’t know anything about what they are carrying!!!
Any day now will start the world wide pidyon shevuim appeal.
If you would do some investigative journalism you would find that the two chassidic bochurim in their teens have left the charedi world a couple of years ago. The implication that they were just not dressed now as chassidic jews is wrong. They are never dressed in the religious garb now.
The Israeli news is reporting that although these 2 students com from ultra ortodox families, they both have gone off the derech quite some time ago….
For years, we have been hearing some few lone voices discussing the problems of drug abuse within the Jewish community, and we rseponded with the typical Jewish denial. “It doesn’t happen among us.” Bupkes. There are about as many drug users, addicts, dealers, etc. in the frum community as in any other group in the world. It may be unfair to say it’s worse, but to deny it is equally as misleading and dangerous.
We do far too little as a community to educate ourselves about this. And also way too little to prevent the problem from claiming the lives and neshamos of our youth. The problem is multifaceted and deep. It goes to the core of our existence and identity. There are heaps of responsibility on every Yid. Chinuch, as parents and yeshivos, is inadequate to meet the challenges of the times. We are pleasure seekers just like the rest of the world, driving our own away from the ultimates in avodas Hashem. We have not learned the lessons that even the goyishe secular world has learned about prevention and early intervention. The problem is us, and we mock those who speak up to correct it. When will we learn? When will we save our own children?
that’s true they used to be chasidish, but they went off the derech rc”l and they are students of Bais H.L.L., wich is a so called school to take bucharim from heimishe families off the derech
What were they thinking? They knew about Japan, & they know dogs could sniff it out, anyone carrying that much Coke would get caught.
Now wait for the Kol Koreis to pay for their legal fees, that it is blood libel planted on them, they are innocennt.
What are Yeshiva boys doing in Brazil?
Now another 2 Chasidishe Bucherim , who would be getting married now have ruined lives. In the alter heim the enabler in Kfar Chabad may have become a mikvah accident.
How come their Yeshivos let them go to Brazil in middle of Zman. Time for a new mashgiach?
According to a Charedi website in Hebrew, they are FORMERLY charedi boys
from chasuva families who left the fold years ago- and were “Mekurav”, by the group “Hillel” who aid frum people to become frei, rachmana letzlon.
Drug smuggling is terrible, but here is another attempt by the left wing press to paint all religious people as drug smugglers
Waiting for the outraged declarations that these innocent bochorim were dupes of a wicked non-religious person who told them they were carrying special talcum powder for the irritated tushies of little babies in B’nai Brak.
lock em up and throw away the keys.
one can live in Bnei Brak or anywhere else and yet if they break a law of this magnitude, they are not haredi, orthodox and questionably Jewish. They can look and sound Jewish but they are simple criminals who are going against everything that Judaism represents. they should retire in jail!
hashem yiracheim on us
so these kids went “off the derech” they are still someones children they are someones brothers they are our brothers
we need to see why they did this and we need to learn to prevent our children from ever doing this again
we need to love “every jew” as the famous hillel said ahavs yisroel is the torah the rest is the peirush. “every jew” no matter what condition he is in tirah and mitzvois
with true love we will counter all the “off the derech”
As with all drug smugglers they were out for a quick dollar, and got caught. Good work Tel Aviv Police Department!
That they were dropouts only reinforces the failure of the system.
Almost all the posters today are totally missing the point. The message the frum world has to take from this is to take some responsibility and provide better education to their children. The problem here is that these boys went off the derech and had no path in life and became bumbling drug smugglers. This could have been avoided with better parenting and community involvement before they left the fold.
If we take the position of protecting these people from the consequences of their actions, we will be rewarding it. Then we become part of the problem, not the solution. I will staunchly refuse to be part of a pidyon shvuyim campaign. I asked rabbonim years ago about drug dealers, and the unanimous psak was that they are “rodfim” that could be eliminated with full support of halacha. We need to be more aware of the criminal aspect of this issue, and give the authorities our unconditional support at helping rid our community and our streets of the cancer of drug abuse.
They probably just saw Holy Rollers & wanted a piece of the action also
These are our children! Please do not throw them away. Remember we are all responsible towards one another. We can still save them. Never give up.
Listen to their lawyers the lady lawyer says it all. They are stupid kids, look at the boy with the little kipa, he seems a sweetheart, just dilusioned, & probably brainless. {Is he the Yosom?}
Nebach on them.
We are so busy with our own selfish lives, yes we give tzedokah, we go to simchos shivas & levayos. We support these big marketing Baalei Tshuva & health help centres. The more colorful their graphics the mkore buck they strike. We support the shnorer, who has the guts to print pages & put them all over, & give a nice drosho, more that the Real Oni, who can’t show his face. We do chesed when it pays & looks nice. Like the phsycopath, who had a secretary,who had a kid nebach on chemo, he rodefed her to work every minute,never helped her a penny for her kids treatment, & then had signs hanging over town, parlour meeting at his home for a choshuva Yerushalmi yid, whos kid needs chemo.
These kids could have been helped with a smile a trip, & a little of our precious time & maybe money.
They may shape up in jail, but how will we shape up?
All embarrassed frum yiden simply say they are off the derech. That changes nothing. The blame is still on us. Is this what comes of boys raised in a frum environment? Why are they going off the derech? We can’t simply wash our hands of their misdeeds. We always look at people’s upbringings to answer the whys that come up through their actions.
By definition, anyone who does this is not a shomer Torah umitzvos. That can be said about all horrible aveiros. But why are we pumping out so many criminals? Let’s really ask ourselves that.
the truth as most know outside of the sheltered folks on VIN is that if they could tax coke the governments of the world would be glad to legalize it. way more people die from alcohol related deaths than drug related deaths, also you may want to ask yourself were the legally exported to America coca-leaves wind up. ill give you a hint its on your shul kiddush table.
How come you never hear about off-the-derech (formerly) yeshiva boys who become successful plastic surgeons? Why do they always gravitate to the underworld?
Just for once I want to hear of a yeshiva dropout who went on to become a research scientist or a podiatrist!!
im sure the drugs were for the non-frum market whether they were transported by charidim who were probaly sweet talked in to it …shame on israel for letting all the russian gentiles influence the country….
The organizer was from Chabad? Were these kids being mekareved by Chabad? If so, this story is something I would not expect from Chabad, their mitzvos and service to the klal in kiruv far outweigh anything negative that can be said of them.
Kids usually go off the derech because they have a yetzer hora, he shows up in many forms, a dirty magazine, internet, or just pulls to do bad and evil.
Those 2 kids are off the derech and had chosen a couple of years ago to walk on a non religious dangerous path, they are not charedim,and even though they’re not frum and not considered charedim, I do pity them, they hardly started their life now, and they bit a hard rock at this young age.
May they be zoiche to do teshuva.
Formally, didn’t expect common sense from you, since you’re always busy to mock and bash the righteous and defend at all costs all bums and charedi-jew haters.
To #11 , this story doesn’t prove that charedim have a drug problem, which is lie!! There may be isolated cases, but your blunt statement is false and a libel.
1)This story itself is about drug “dealers” not users/abusers.
2) This story happened with 2 “non charedim”, 2 secular non frum guys.
So maybe you find a serious drug dealing problem at the off derech seculars in Israel.
To #52 ,
I love all big mouths that know whom to blame, if you wanna blame “us”, just blame “me” – yourself!
When a person wants to sin its his own choice! Nobody promotes him to it, as you see 99 percent of yeshiva graduates are religious and not drop outs, that a very high score, and this small percentage of drop outs shows the success rate of the charedi chinuch.
consider themselves lucky they were not busted in brazil, despite Israeli police tipping off the Brazilians. They are very lucky they are in Israel and not rotting away in San Paula
What difference does it make if these are “frum”, “Chareidi”, or “MO” kids? The point is that a “FRUM” man, is at fault here. He culled them in and tempted their sense of greed. Obviously he paid them a nice chunk of change to work with him. We don’t know what he paid them, we don’t know what he promised them, but we do know that they are young kids who make mistakes and should have known better after what happened to those boys in Japan. But lets lay the brunt of the blame on the real criminal here and that is the FRUM guy who is the true smuggler.
Chilul Hashem !!
They “never knew” what they had in the suitcase,give me a break.
5-10 years of hard time is an appropriate punishment for this crime in my opinion. i wonder what they will get…vosiznaiz please post an update on what their sentence ultimately is
To #52 ,
I love all big mouths that know whom to blame, if you wanna blame “us”, just blame “me” – yourself!
When a person wants to sin its his own choice! Nobody promotes him to it, as you see 99 percent of yeshiva graduates are religious and not drop outs, that a very high score, and this small percentage of drop outs shows the success rate of the charedi chinuch.
Unfortiunly………you read evry day in Isrealy newspapers the worst that can happen but it dosent go out to the world.difrent is when a CHARAIDE dose anything wrong it goes to international press wake up it is zionisim against CHARAIDEM…………….
Here we go again. People debating whether “frum” people commit crimes. Problem is, what defines “frum”. I guess, it refers to someone living within the frum community, ostensibly following the basics of Shabbos, kashrus, etc. Do frum people navigate to places on the internet that are clearly ossur? Yes! Are they frum? Do frum people cut corners on matters of kashrus? Yes! Do frum people speak lashon harah? Yes! Do frum people take money and programs from the government for which they are ineligible? Yes! Do frum people lie? Yes! Are there frum people who abuse or molest others? Yes! Are they really frum?
It is not our purview to establish which issurim are okay, and still leave a person with the “frum” label. We can speak about the “culturally frum”, denoting the outward lifestyle. That’s all it means. And some OTD kids (and adults) retain this cultural identity, and others don’t. Nobody labeled the molesters arrested or sentenced recently as “OTD”. Why not?
The frum community has its problems, that is fact. Let’s stop debating, and let’s correct ourselves. There’s lots to do. אי אתה רשאי להבטל ממנה.