Criminals on the run and Israeli expatriates are involved in all production and distribution stages of the drug - from production in the Netherlands to sales at trance parties.
"Israelis have taken over the global Ecstasy market," police sources say. Information assembled by Israel Police's intelligence department indicates that Israeli gangs with organized crime characteristics are involved in all production and distribution stages of the drug in Israel and around the world.
More than 1.5 million Ecstasy pills were seized from individuals possessing Israeli citizenship in 1999 alone. Police sources say that in recent years the global Ecstasy industry, whose value is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars a year, has been controlled and run by Israelis operating from the US, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Israel and other countries.
According to the police, the Israeli gangs are made up mainly from criminals on the run and Israeli expatriates who left Israel years ago. The gangs are involved in all the production and distribution stages of the drug, from its manufacture in Dutch laboratories to its sale at trance parties.
The police knows that a considerable part of the drug sales profit is laundered through Israeli bank accounts.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 1 August, 2000