Link to the full article https://roughdiplomacy.com/anthony-pellicano/
It was this incident, it turns out—and not the fish on Anita Busch’s Audi, as previous reports suggest—which first brought Pellicano’s secret world to the F.B.I.’s attention as part of the Nicherie brother’s saga with the Shafrir family.
According to a lawsuit, the saga is complex, including allegations: Daniel and Abner Nicherie were Israeli con men, who targeted fellow Israeli, Ami Shafrir, owner of several Beverly Hills office buildings.
Posing as legitimate businessmen, they succeeded not only in swindling Shafrir out of around $40 million—but also in persuading his wife, Sarit, to work alongside them, convincing her Ami was a criminal.
When Ami sued, the Nicheries responded with a barrage of legal artillery, eventually hiring 40 separate Los Angeles attorneys to countersue.
After a referral from one of these lawyers, Victor Sherman, they allegedly paid Pellicano $50,000 to wiretap Ami.
Pellicano told the Nicheries he could use customized electronics to cause interference on Ami’s cell phone, which would force him to use the wiretapped landline more often.
Anthony Pellicano and Howard Weitzman
The Nicheries understood Ami was being bugged, although Pellicano initially refused to let them listen in.
But the Nicheries were eventually given access to the recordings because Ami sometimes spoke in Hebrew, and Pellicano couldn’t understand him.
He made the two brothers swear that what they heard would remain confidential.
On several occasions they arrived at Pellicano’s office after hours, allowing themselves to be frisked and turning over their cellular phones.
Unbeknownst to Pellicano, however, Daniel Nicherie had secreted a tiny cell phone in his sock, which he used to allow Ami’s wife, Sarit, to listen in on the wiretap recordings.
Sarit Shafrir, heard dozens of Ami’s conversations this way; sometimes the Nicheries would call from Pellicano’s office and play back a tape, other times they would leave a recording of the wiretap on her answering machine.
In time, the Nicheries and Pellicano began speaking of ways to put Ami in jail by framing him; one involved planting cocaine in the trunk of his car and having a Beverly Hills policeman on Pellicano’s payroll pull him over.
It was then, Sarit’s began having second thoughts about the Nicheries.
LAS VEGAS – Until last week, Ami Shafrir had spent four frustrating years telling anyone who would listen a seemingly incredible tale of being conned out of tens of millions of dollars worth of businesses, property and cash, and of being wiretapped in the process by private detective Anthony Pellicano.
Shafrir, an Israeli-born telecommunications whiz who came to the United States 15 years ago “looking for my destiny” and wound up rich in Beverly Hills, told his story in impassioned speeches during court proceedings and on a website he called BigCrime.com.
He invited a Los Angeles television crew to follow him as he tried to break into his own office building – only to be stopped by a security guard at gunpoint – and pleaded with law enforcement officials to do something about the people who had “robbed me of everything I had, including my identity, livelihood, dignity.”
Shafrir’s story was that while he was going through a divorce, two brothers – fellow Israelis – had befriended his wife, Sarit, and offered to help her through the contentious split-up; that the brothers turned out to be Daniel and Abner Nicherie, both of whom had criminal records; and that by the time he and his now ex-wife found out who they were, it was too late.
In lawsuits filed first in Los Angeles Superior Court, then federal court, Shafrir alleged that the Nicherie brothers had used forgery and other schemes to loot his family’s assets, including office buildings on Sunset and Wilshire boulevards and a company that connected callers to Internet chat rooms.
The brothers also tried to frame him for credit card fraud and for molesting his own child, Shafrir alleged, and paid $154,000 to Pellicano, Shafrir said, to tap his phone and learn how he was trying to protect himself against them.
But the worst part, Shafrir said, was how the older of the brothers, Daniel Nicherie, spent millions of dollars of the looted money to hire teams of lawyers to file lawsuit after lawsuit against him, so many that he was forced into bankruptcy while he went from court to court, praying that some judge would believe the wild conspiracy theory he spouted.
“I keep on waking every morning to a new day of nothingness, continuing to battle the terror,” he lamented last November, in a letter to the U.S. Labor Department.
Shafrir often feared that no one believed him. In fact, three federal agencies, the FBI, IRS and Labor Department, had opened investigations. And on Thursday, when Shafrir flew here from Los Angeles for a meeting with the elder Nicherie brother, federal agents moved in to arrest Daniel Nicherie on seven counts of wire fraud, bankruptcy fraud and pension fraud.
On Friday, a 49-page arrest warrant affidavit was unsealed describing Daniel Nicherie, 44, as a man with 11 aliases and a trail of victims stretching across the country and spanning more than a decade. He faces a hearing today in Los Angeles on whether he should remain in custody in the criminal case that could shed light both on high-stake confidence games and the private detective work of Pellicano, who is currently in prison on explosives charges.
In addition to the Shafrirs, Nicherie allegedly duped a Los Angeles physician and his father out of $275,000 by telling them they would be joining other wealthy investors, including a prominent Israeli entertainer, in a venture selling “close out” merchandise over the Internet. In fact, the celebrity was not an investor and the money was used for Nicherie’s entertainment and “personal expenses,” such as airfare and meals, the government said.
As for Ami Shafrir, the government affidavit estimates that he and his ex-wife had, indeed, been “defrauded out of at least $40 million.” Daniel Nicherie used his take, the document says, on everything from his father’s memorial service to a residence in San Diego to the hiring of Pellicano.
The government also echoes Shafrir’s years of complaints that a cadre of civil lawyers had exploited the court system “to help promote” the fraudulent schemes.
Nicherie used the Shafrirs’ own money to fund “approximately 106 lawsuits and 10 bankruptcy filings” to separate them from their wealth, the government alleges. According to the affidavit, the accused con man reasoned that “the legal system was not equipped to deal with attorneys who lie.”
“Finally,” Ami Shafrir said after Nicherie’s arrest, “the world believed me.”
Shafrir got his start in electronics, owning a sales and repair business in Israel. He met Sarit when she came in as a customer. They married in 1988 and the next year moved to the United States, convinced it was the only place for a man of Ami’s ideas and drive. The Shafrirs created several companies to service the trades that had figured out how to profit off the Internet, from psychic hotlines to racy chat rooms. One firm provided the phone lines and another billing services for vendors.
Within a few years, they were living with their two children in the Mount Olympus enclave, above the Sunset Strip, and were able to buy the small office building in which they rented space and a 50,000-square-foot building on Wilshire owned by producer Dino De Laurentis.
Their businesses were more successful than their marriage, however, especially after Ami began spending time in Europe, expanding their holdings. Suspicious of his conduct on the road and feeling neglected at home, Sarit filed for divorce in August 1998. They still were negotiating the terms of their split the next year when she met the Nicheries.
In a court declaration, Sarit Shafrir said the brothers gave their names as “Nishrie,” which is why she did not immediately find their criminal backgrounds: Daniel Nicherie had received a one-year sentence in a Texas case for defrauding the University Savings Assn. of $1.2 million in loans. His brother, Abner, had pleaded guilty in 1999 to one federal conspiracy count in a scheme to defraud pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Sarit said the brothers presented themselves as “wealthy businessmen able to provide legal and consulting services,” and offered to help make sure her husband did not cheat her in their divorce. One way they alienated her from him, she said, was by hiring Pellicano, three years before the private investigator’s purported wiretapping would make front-page headlines. Sarit last year was one of the witnesses called before a federal grand jury investigating the detective and lawyers who may have benefited from such eavesdropping on Hollywood celebrities and other Southern Californians.
Associates have said that Pellicano was cautious and secretive and never let clients listen to his recordings. But court records suggest that he may have departed from his rule in this case. Because Ami Shafrir often spoke in Hebrew, his ex-wife said, the detective let the Nicheries, who also spoke the language, come to his office to hear the tapes. They, in turn, sometimes called her on a cellphone and let her listen to excerpts, she said.
“I heard [Ami] talking to his mother about me and the children,” she recalled. “I really wanted to bury this man.”
Sarit later alleged in court papers that the brothers had instructed her to transfer her home to a Nevada corporation and her savings to accounts they specified to keep such assets out of reach of her husband.
By the summer of 2001, she had second thoughts about the Nicheries and declared, during a Los Angeles court appearance, that they were pulling a “big scam.” Sarit said she had helped them by signing her ex-husband’s nameto documents that put their Internet company under Daniel Nicherie’s
control.
“They showed me how to lie,” she told a judge that Aug. 28. “They showed me how to forge. They showed me how to do the most horrible things.”
She eventually helped her ex-husband in his own racketeering suit against the Nicheries. The suit alleged that the brothers had driven him into bankruptcy, tried to send him to prison by getting a man to claim that Ami had helped him in a credit card fraud, and had even encouraged his daughter to say he had molested her. Last year, Shafrir’s suit was settled, on paper at least, when the Nicheries agreed to pay him $4 million, though Shafrir acknowledged that, like others who had sued them before, he might have a hard time collecting.
The major fraud section of the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said the arrest will not end an “ongoing” investigation. Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven Olson said the findings of the three agencies will be presented to a federal grand jury and that additional charges – and defendants – could be included in an indictment.
Olson described Daniel Nicherie as “an economic predator” and said he had been arrested now in part because he was in the country. Although Nicherie lists his residence as Las Vegas, he also has a home in Belgium.
In Las Vegas on Friday, one of Nicherie’s criminal lawyers, David Chesnoff, asked a federal magistrate to let the defendant stay free and be with his five children, one of whom suffers from Crohn’s disease. But after hours of legal wrangling, and more on Monday, Nicherie remained in custody pending today’s hearing.
Nicherie’s lawyers said they could not comment on the charges until they hadread through the government’s filing. “It’s easy to make allegations,” said Los Angeles defense attorney Stanley Greenberg, “harder to prove them.”
Ami Shafrir, meanwhile, said he planned to see them all in court today. “I wouldn’t miss it,” he said.
A former Los Angeles resident who posed as an attorney and investment banker, gained the trust of small business owners and investors, and then looted their companies and misappropriated their investments was arrested yesterday afternoon in Las Vegas, United States Attorney Debra W. Yang announced today.
Daniel Nicherie, 44, of Brussels, Belgium, was arrested pursuant to a criminal complaint by special agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and IRS-Criminal Investigation. The complaint, which was filed on Wednesday and unsealed today, charges Nicherie with four counts of wire fraud, two counts of bankruptcy fraud and one count of pension fraud.
Nicherie allegedly defrauded a Los Angeles couple out of approximately $40 million in cash, real property and businesses. Nicherie told the victims, Ami and Sarit Shafrir, that he could assist them with their business interests. Nicherie then took control of the Shafrirs’ companies, drained the companies’ assets and then put the companies into bankruptcy. Nicherie is also accused of seizing Sarit Shafrir’s personal assets through a similarly elaborate scheme. Nicherie then took a series of steps, including the filing of more than 100 lawsuits, to prevent the Shafrirs from recovering their assets.
Nicherie is also charged with defrauding Ezra and Gil Mileikowsky of Los Angeles out of $275,000 in cash. Nicherie made a series of misrepresentations that caused the Mileikowskys to invest in a purported business which allegedly sold excess inventory over the Internet, as well as a purported venture capital fund. Nicherie lured the Mileikowskys by falsely stating that they could expect a high rate of return on their investments and that prominent individuals, including Haim Saban, a television and film producer, and Shuki Levy, an Israeli entertainment figure, had invested with Nicherie.
A criminal complaint contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
If convicted of the charges set forth in the complaint, Nicherie faces a maximum penalty of 35 years in federal prison.
Nicherie is expected to make his initial court appearance at 3:00 this afternoon in United States District Court in Las Vegas.
This case was investigated by the Department of Labor, IRS-Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
FBI Press release March 5, 2004 Daniel Nicherie Callahan FBI Press release March 5, 2004 Daniel Nicherie Callahan
Comments Off on ELABORATE FRAUD SCHEME LEADS TO ARREST IN LAS VEGASleave a reply
In: Law
Attention: If you have reached this site, it’s because you have googled my name Ami Shafrir. All search results that are the subject of lawsuits are part of me being victimized by white-collar crime which caused 130 lawsuits and 15 bankruptcies (which you can read more about it on my website BigCrime.com) The convicted criminals who destroyed my estate, in their efforts to destroy me throw a lot of dirt on the Internet about my past, and continued to publish defamatory stories and fake lawsuits claiming horrible falsities that never ever happened. The fact of the matter is that due to my efforts 3 criminals went to jail and I prevailed and came out completely vindicated, however I lost my whole empire that have created and had to start all over again.
I am a serious businessman that has a track record of success, record of creating innovation and predicting the future of technology advancement. I started as a little kid 10 years old, building electronics gadgets and by the age of 15 I was already manufacturing my own mass-produced electronics products. After serving 4 years in the Israeli military specializing in telecommunications, by my mid-20s I was already a master of cellular communications and predicted where the world is going to go wireless.
In 1996 I predicted the whole world will go on the Internet, including all financial transactions and institutes. At the same year I also predicted that my newly created payment platform will become the new Internet currency, in essence predicting the crypto currency 13 years ahead of its time. My predictions were all proven to become a reality and the living proof is that today we are living in a world of cellular devices that are ruling everything we do and electronics is ruling any possible section of our livelihood.
About Ami Shafrir
Ami Shafrir is an Internet entrepreneur that started his Internet involvement in 1994 with his company WorldSite networks Inc.
Back in 1994-2000 Ami Shafrir owned a 50,000 ft.² building in 8670 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, which back in the 90’s was the first building in the area that had high-speed fiber connection to the Internet. In 1994 Ami started in his building WorldSite that was providing Internet hosting, Internet payment processing and website programming. WorldSite was hosting the websites for all major Hollywood studios including Paramount, Warner Bros., of the most high-profile Hollywood movies at the time such as Independence Day.
WorldSite also had a subsidiary called ComBill which was processing payments on the Internet and was known in the circle of Internet operators at the time as the first one in the history of Internet to process real-time credit card transaction on the internet. Ami through his company WorldSite was working with banks and the city of Los Angeles providing them online payment systems.
ComBill was Worldwide network division providing billing services for companies on the Internet and On-line financial transaction services, namely, providing credit and debit information and collection services as well as payment fraud detection and electronic funds transfers via computer networks for global computer information and on-line customers
Through his Internet billing platform ComBill Ami’s vision was ahead of its time. Ami Shafrir was pitching banks explaining to them that Internet banking and billing is the future and in the future will be very few physical bank branches and bank tellers. Many bankers laughed at Ami Shafrir for his extreme predictions, but we all know what is reality today for e-commerce and banking on the Internet. Today the billing industry worth multi trillion dollars industry, Ami Shafrir as a pioneer back in 1996 predicted the Internet currencies such as bitcoin and block chain tokens, that is more than 10 years before bitcoin was invented. See the pictures brochure of ComBill at the bottom to reflect this.
Ami also owned 75% of another billing company in Birmingham Alabama named Federal Trance Tel (FTT). FTT was a major B2B long-distance provider for business applications including pay-per-call 900 numbers and toll-free numbers. FTT had billing agreements with all US long-distance carriers and was providing billing services tens 10’s millions dollars per month.
FTT had Internet billing platform named UniversalBill existed there before PayPal, providing array of services similar to PayPal in the 90’s, however WorldSite.com, ComBill.com & FTT companies were destroyed using any possible white-collar crime including forgery of Ami’s signatures 25 times by the convicted brothers Daniel and Abner Nicherie who destroyed the estate of Ami Shafrir who was in the middle of divorce proceeding during 2000-2001.
Former conglomerate valued at $40 million but was poised to become an multibillion-dollar enterprise, all turned to rebel and destroyed by the crimes committed by the Nicherie brothers. Ami Shafrir was working in cooperation with the FBI, criminal division of the IRS, criminal Department of US Department of Labor and Los Angeles US Attorney office to bring these criminals to justice, but at the end once Daniel and Abner Nicherie were arrested there was nothing left of the multimillion-dollar are you done with church? What are you doing now? Enterprise.
During 2000-2004 due to the crimes committed by Nicherie brothers, unfortunately Ami Shafrir was dragged into barrage of litigation and was consumed directly or indirectly with 130 lawsuits and 15 bankruptcies caused by the Nicherie brothers criminal activity as featured in BigCrime.com. In all these lawsuits connected to his name Ami eventually prevailed, and having his hands over $10 million judgments against Daniel Nicherie criminal enterprise still uncollected.
Anthony Pellicano was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison partially for wiretapping Ami Shafrir. The Anthony Pellicano trial which was considered the trial of the 21st century was instigated after Ami Shafrir found out that Anthony Pellicano was wiretapping Ami’s conversations with the FBI back in 2000
