NEW YORK: British and American drug-busting authorities claim to have smashed one of the most bizarre money-laundering services ever operated for Colombian cocaine cartels: a circle of ultra-religious Hassidic Jews in New York.

The ring is said to be one of the biggest to be ‘cleaning’ profits amassed by the Colombian coke barons, with the strange twist that it is run by a group from the Jewish community that acts as moral and spiritual guardian of the Orthodox faith.

This is not the first time the Hassidim have been exposed as involved in the big-time drug trade. Last year, the trial ended of a circle run by Sean Erez, a Hassidic who oversaw a massive ecstasy smuggling operation, drawing recruits from the young Orthodox community.

In that case, the drug was smuggled in boxes worn either under traditional Hassidic hats or next to the heart, intended to contain prayer scrolls, or else packed into white athletic socks.

The latest case was unveiled in papers prepared by Manhattan district attorney James Comey, beginning with the arrival from Madrid of Avraham Zaltzman at Heathrow Airport in April.

Zaltzman, under surveillance by the FBI, was stopped by British Customs agents after a tip-off, and found to have $460,000 concealed in his vest. He and another Hassidic orthodox, Aaron Bornstein, were arrested last week, but sources at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said that a ringleader is still being sought and that the case may go far wider and deeper than the $1.7 billion Zaltzman and Bornstein are accused of laundering.

A warrant is out for the arrest of a third man, Akiva Apter, who remains a fugitive and who sources say might prove to be one of the most important ‘cleaners’ of drug profits in America.

According to the DA’s papers, the suspects were brazen in their depositing of money: up to $500,000 would be banked in cash at a time. Zaltzman is said to have bragged on wiretaps that he could ‘pick up money anywhere and wire it anywhere’, according to an FBI affidavit.

To the outside world, Zaltzman is a part-time printer and Bornstein an interior designer in the strictly religious and observant orthodox community of Borough Park, Brooklyn. Zaltzman spends half his year in Israel.

But their pious working life was blown open when investigators recruited one of the ring, who spoke both Yiddish and Spanish, as an informant.

The mole recorded hundreds of hours during more than 400 telephone conversations with his partners.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.