NEWARK -- Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn called himself a "matchmaker," but his business wasn't romance. Instead, authorities say, he brokered the sale of black-market kidneys, buying organs from vulnerable people from Israel for $10,000 and selling them to desperate patients in the U.S. for as much as $160,000.

The alleged scheme exposed this week by an FBI sting, rocked the nation's transplant industry. If true, it would be the first documented case of organ trafficking in the U.S., transplant experts said today.

Federal authorities arrested 44 people in New Jersey and New York in a broad-ranging corruption and international money laundering investigation that led to charges against two N.J. assemblyman and mayors of Hoboken, Secaucus and Ridgefield. The FBI and IRS investigation also ensnared rabbis from the Syrian Jewish communities in Deal and Brooklyn.

At the center of the case was Solomon Dwek, a failed Deal real estate developer. After he was caught allegedly trying to pull off a $50 million bank scam, he agreed to wear a wire and was allegedly able to ensnare the public officials and religious leaders in a massive web of money laundering, corruption and fraud.

In all 44 men and women were arrested -- including the mayor of Ridgefield and an Ocean County assemblyman -- and federal authorities seized 28 bank accounts in the names of those charged with laundering money.

Federal officers showed up at the defendants' homes heavily armed, according to one of the accused, former Jersey City housing inspector John Guarini, who told The Jersey Journal that if the investigators had simply asked him to surrender, he would have.
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Jersey City Council President Mariano Vega, who is also the director of parks and recreation for the county, is accused of taking $30,000 -- $20,000 in the form of campaign contributions and $10,000 paid after his election in May.

The list goes on and on.

In all 44 men and women were arrested -- including the mayor of Ridgefield and an Ocean County assemblyman -- and federal authorities seized 28 bank accounts in the names of those charged with laundering money.

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