KOSHER NOSTRA and DIRTY JERSEY

RABBIS & TOP POLS AMONG 44 BUSTED
SCHEMES TO SELL KIDNEYS, LAUNDER $$
INFORMANT 'BRIBER' CAUGHT BIGS ON TAPE

Everything was for sale -- from politicians to kidneys.

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Separate federal probes targeting rogue rabbis in Brooklyn and corrupt public officials in New Jersey led to the arrests yesterday of 44 people, including three mayors and five religious leaders.

ANOTHER WOUND FOR WEAKENED CORZINE

EDITORIAL: DON'T STOP WITH JERSEY

All the suspects in both investigations were brought down by the same shady developer, who wore a wire for three years while he bought off politicians, passed supposedly dirty money for laundering and even arranged for a $160,000 kidney sale.

"The list of names and titles of those arrested today sounds like a roster for a community leaders' meeting," said Weysan Dun, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark office. "Sadly, these prominent individuals were not in a meeting room, but were in the FBI booking room this morning."

The rabbis and politicians -- among them the mayors of Hoboken, Ridgefield and Secaucus, and the Jersey City Council president -- were hauled into court in handcuffs to answer a staggering number of charges that shocked even the most jaded Jerseyans.

One suspect, Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, a Democrat, was caught on tape at a diner bragging, "I could be indicted and still get 85 to 95 percent of the vote," said acting US Attorney Ralph Marra.

At the center of the stings by the FBI and the IRS was Solomon Dwek -- a real-estate developer busted in May 2006 for trying to rip off $50 million from PNC Bank through a check-kiting scheme.

He was identified by sources as the confidential witness in the case.

Dwek's original brief was to expose international money laundering by rabbis in Jersey and Brooklyn.

Once flipped by the feds, the 36-year-old posed as a crooked businessman looking to launder proceeds from fraudulent bank loans or sales of fake designer handbags to accomplices who would launder the money through charities in the United States and Israel.

They moved "at least tens of millions of dollars through charitable, nonprofit entities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey," Marra said.

Dwek boasted to his unsuspecting clients that he "schnookied," or fooled, the banks into giving him the loans -- and needed to clean the money so it couldn't be traced back to him. But the clients turned out to be the schnooks.

The various rabbis operated independently or in small groups, rather than as one network, authorities said.

Dwek, who ran a Deal, NJ, yeshiva that catered to Sephardic Jews, also offered to bribe officials to smooth the way for his real-estate projects. That phase of the ruse ensnared the politicians.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242009/news/regionalnews/kosher_nostra__dirty_jersey_180980.htm

Public officials, rabbis arrested in New Jersey-New York corruption probe