Virtually all of the scores of individuals questioned or detained by the DEA and other federal and local law enforcement authorities were citizens of the State of Israel. They were generally organized in groups of eight to 10 people, with a single team leader (the "Israeli DEA Groups"). They usually worked, individually or in pairs, carrying makeshift art portfolios. They visited scores of DEA offices, laboratories and houses or apartments, ostensibly to offer or show the paintings or prints in the portfolios for sale or promotion to DEA personnel.

Backgrounds in Intelligence, Electronic Intercept And Communications Units

While Israel has compulsory military service, many of those questioned by U.S. authorities had served in the military intelligence services or in electronic or communications units of the Israeli army. Thus, for example, Lior Baram ³ of Plantation (near Hollywood), Florida, questioned by the DEA on January 22, 2001, had served two years in Israeli intelligence working with classified information; Dilka Borenstein, ⁴ questioned by INS at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport ("DFW Airport") on March 27, 2001, was a "recently discharged" military intelligence officer; Marina Glikman, ⁵ questioned at DFW Airport on or about May 1, 2001, worked for an Israeli software company with expertise in hand-held computer technology and had served as an Israeli military intelligence officer; Tomer Ben Dor, also questioned at DFW Airport on that day, ⁶ worked for an Israeli wiretapping company and had served in an Israeli military unit that was "responsible for" Patriot missile defense.

The DEA's Office of Security concluded that the Israelis "may well be engaged in organized intelligence gathering." ⁷ A spokesman for the Immigration & Naturalization Service (the "INS") stated that dozens of these Israelis were expelled from the United States (from California, the Midwest, Florida and other states). "No one has tallied the total," he said. ⁸ The expulsions were usually for visa violations.

The leaders of the Israeli DEA Groups included Itay Simon (arrested on April 14, 2001 in Irving, Texas), recently discharged from the Israeli army where he had done classified work for the Israeli military. ⁹ Mr. Simon coordinated recruiting for the groups and served as an intermediary between five individuals in Israel and the U.S. operation. ¹⁰ Another leader was Michael Calmanovic (also arrested in Irving on that day), who rented a number of apartments in Irving, Texas occupied by 25 Israelis. ¹¹ Mr. Calmanovic was a recently discharged electronic intercept operator for the Israeli military. ¹² As stated in the DEA Report, traveling about the U.S. to sell paintings "seem[ed] not to fit [the] background" ¹³ of many of the individuals in question.

A third principal was Hanan Serfaty (or Sarfati), a team leader residing in Hollywood, Florida. When questioned by the DEA in Tampa, Florida, on March 1, 2001, he had in his possession bank deposit slips amounting to more than $100,000 from December 2000 through the first quarter of 2001, and withdrawal slips for slightly less than that amount during the period. Mr. Serfaty served in the Israeli military between the ages of 18 and 21, but refused to disclose to the DEA his activities between the ages of 21 and 24, including his activities since his U.S. arrival at age 23 in 2000. ¹⁴ Another was Peer Segalovitz of Tamarac, Florida (about 20 miles west of Hollywood — see MAP 1), an active officer in an Israeli special forces battalion who commanded 80 men in the Golan Heights. He was detained in Orlando on May 3, 2001. ¹⁵

Connections to Israeli Wiretapping and Telecommunications Companies

Tomer Ben Dor (mentioned above), another Israeli of interest to the DEA, was an employee of Nice-Systems Ltd., an Israeli company specializing in systems and solutions for detecting, locating, monitoring, evaluating and analyzing voice communications and other transmissions from a variety of sources--activities commonly known as wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping. Nice-Systems' U.S. subsidiary, Nice Systems Inc., is located in Rutherford, New Jersey ¹⁶ , adjacent to East Rutherford where five members of the Israeli New Jersey group were arrested on September 11. When Mr. Ben Dor was interrogated by the INS at the DFW Airport in May 2001, an inspection of his bags revealed a printout containing a reference to a file entitled "DEA Groups." ¹⁷

One member of the Israeli DEA Groups, Michal Gal, who was arrested in Irving, Texas, ¹⁸ was released on a $10,000 cash bond posted by Ophir Baer, an employee of Amdocs, Inc. an Israeli telecommunications firm with operations in the United States. The Amdocs employee described Mr. Gal as a "relative".

Messrs. Calmanovic and Simon (above) were arrested by the INS for their role in the Israelis' art- selling activities without the necessary visas. They were held on $50,000 bond, ¹⁹ which was subsequently posted, though the DEA Report does not say by whom. Six members of the Israeli DEA Groups appear to have been using cell telephones that were purchased by a former Israeli vice consul in the United States. ²⁰

Israeli Surveillance of U.S. Government Offices, Laboratories and Residences and Other Strategic Areas

During the first five months of 2001 (and including a few calls in 2000), the Israeli DEA Groups went to a total of about 57 DEA locations (28 offices and 29 residences), primarily in the southern United States ²¹ , ostensibly offering to sell or solicit an interest in paintings. These included 25 DEA offices and three laboratories: the DEA's Southwest Laboratory near San Diego (and the residence of its Director), ²² the DEA's Southeast Laboratory in Miami (and the residences of three of its chemists), ²³ and the DEA'S South Central Laboratory (or property adjacent to it), as well as the residences of one of its chemists and another employee. ²⁴ One Israeli asked to visit the house of a DEA employee "to match the frame to his furnishing," an offer the employee declined.

Members of the Israeli DEA Groups were also discovered taking photographs of a DEA office building and parking lot in Orlando, Florida, ²⁵ and on an active runway of the Volk Field Air National Guard Base at Camp Douglas, Wisconsin. ²⁶ An Air Force alert was issued from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City concerning possible Israeli intelligence gathering at the base. ²⁷ Israeli personnel were also found taking a photograph of the house of a special agent of the Environmental Protection Agency in Denver, Colorado, ²⁸ and "diagramming" the inside of an office building of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Lexington, Kentucky. ²⁹

Spying on the United States

The Israeli DEA Groups were clearly spying on the Drug Enforcement Agency, and thus upon the United States. Many individuals in the DEA Groups may have been trying to do no more than sell paintings (albeit in violation of their visa status and thus unlawfully), but the total number of visits to DEA offices, laboratories and residences precludes any characterization of these efforts as a commonplace sales endeavor. ³⁰ The DEA Report speculates that the spying by the Israeli DEA Groups was related to an ongoing ecstasy investigation. ³¹ In the course of an earlier ecstasy investigation, the DEA feared its communications systems had been compromised. ³²

One of the difficulties in analyzing the DEA Report is that it is reactive. The bulk of it records the activities of the Israeli DEA Groups when they call upon or attempt to infiltrate DEA offices, laboratories or residences. The DEA did not generally seek them out, keep them under surveillance, or otherwise try to find out what they were doing, other than making calls on and photographing or diagramming the facilities of the DEA and other governmental agencies.

When the DEA Report was prepared, however, the DEA and the INS were of course unaware of the extensive activities and operations in the United States of the future September 11 hijackers and their suspected collaborators, whom the Israeli DEA Groups appear to have had in their sites as well. Why the Israeli DEA Groups would be engaged in both activities, where their spying on the DEA would clearly raise suspicions among U.S. law enforcement authorities, is unclear. It may well have been an effective distraction of others from or "cover" for their primary objective. This question is discussed further below at p. 43.

Israeli Surveillance of Arab Groups, the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects

Israel's Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks, commonly known as Mossad, is the Israeli agency responsible for its external security. A few days after September 11, Israeli intelligence officials reported that two senior experts of Mossad had warned the United States in August 2001 that large-scale terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland were imminent. They also informed U.S. officials of the existence of a cell of as many as 200 terrorists preparing the operation. ³³

One highly placed investigator stated later that fall that there was evidence linking the Israeli DEA Groups to the gathering of intelligence about the September 11 attacks. He refused to disclose the evidence, however, since it was classified. A highly regarded American journal that broadly covers Israeli affairs reported in December 2001 that the Israeli DEA Groups were spying on Islamic networks in the United States linked to Middle East Terrorism. ³⁴

There was no implication in these reports that the Israelis were involved in planning for or carrying out the September 11 attacks. Rather, it was suspected that the Israelis gathered advance information about the attacks and decided not to share it. "What investigators are saying is that that warning from Mossad was nonspecific and general." ³⁵

Hollywood, Florida: The Operating Base of the Israeli DEA Groups

The locus of the most important operations of the Israeli DEA Groups was the area in and around Hollywood, Florida:

"The majority of the incidents have occurred in the southern half of the continental U.S. with the most activity reported in the state of Florida. . . .Hollywood . . . seems to be a central point for these individuals with several having addresses in this area." ³⁶ [Emphasis supplied.]

At the very time the DEA was setting down these words, in June 2001, just two or three months before the September 11 hijackings, 15 of the 19 future hijackers were also living in Hollywood, nine in the town itself and six in surrounding towns (see Exhibit B and Maps 1 and 2). Hollywood, for months, had been and would continue to be the staging ground for the hijacking of the World Trade Center Planes and the Pennsylvania Plane. Among the Israeli groups, more than 30 lived in the Hollywood area, 10 in Hollywood itself. They were not only spying on the DEA but, in all likelihood, were keeping the future hijackers under surveillance as well. This appears to be the tragic riddle the DEA, unaware of the future hijackers' existence, was unable to solve.

Hanan Serfaty, stopped and questioned by the DEA as noted above on March 1, 2001, lived in Hollywood. Another leader, Legum Yochai, lived in Miami. One of the five members of the Israeli New Jersey Group arrested on September 11 (see below) lived in Miami Beach. Lior Barram, the former Israeli intelligence officer, though stopped at a DEA facility in Houston (Texas may have been a DEA-Group training area as noted below) lived in Plantation, Florida, about 10 miles west of Hollywood. Peer Segalovitz, the Israeli special forces lieutenant, and his brother lived in Tamarac, just north of Fort Lauderdale. Akyuz Sagiv, a former bodyguard to the Israeli army's top-ranking general, appears to have lived in Hollywood or in Coral Springs. For the precise location of the relevant towns in the Hollywood area, see Map 1.