“In South America, the prisons are the worst in the world,” says Ezekiel. “For one penny people are murdered here, for one apple. Everything has to be paid for here – a bed, a phone, food, coffee. Without money in a place like this you die, not counted at all. But thank God I manage to survive. I learned Spanish, I connected with people And I have connections in prison.
“I am facing a death sentence in Turkey and Lebanon. If I return to Israel, I will immediately go to prison to serve another 20 years for murder and escape from prison. For me the prison in Peru is heaven“
“I know how to sit in my corner, not get too mixed up and be in touch with the right people. I have a kind of bodyguard in prison. If I survived here I could survive anywhere in the world. In the end I sat in jail for 32 years, it’s more than life imprisonment. You can read I’m Mr. Prison, Mr. Prison. ”
In your current situation, the prison in Peru is perhaps the safest and most pleasant place for you.
“Unequivocally. In Turkey and Lebanon I am facing death sentences for smuggling tons of cocaine. If I get there they hang me, or shoot me to death. They accuse me of wanting to poison the country with cocaine. If I return to Israel, I immediately go to jail to please Another 20 years on murder and escape from prison. True, it’s not a dangerous and secure prison, but it’s safer than anywhere else. It’s a paradise. ”
The ego ruined my life
“I have never harmed anyone who has not harmed me before,” says Ezekiel, who some call the “Israeli Pablo Escobar” because of his involvement in cocaine smuggling from South America to Lebanon, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands. There was also an attempted smuggling into Israel, but it failed. “I am the nicest person in the world. Everyone who knows me knows this. For those who do not know the facts it is very easy to judge me.”
“In Be’er Sheva prison, there was no value to human life. I cut a prisoners face with a Japanese knife“We threw grenades and explosive devices at the officers. I planned to hold guards hostage.”
Here are the facts: Ezra was born in Tel Aviv 54 years ago, the son of an outstanding police officer. “We lived in a very small house. My father worked for the Petah Tikva police and later received a tempting offer – an upgrade in the job and moving to Jerusalem. The Israeli police needed police to secure the city after the Six Day War. To the house of a rich friend from our class and we emptied the apartment of property: money, gold, jewelry, watches. We sold everything and bought drugs. We would break into shelters and warehouses and steal bicycles, shoes, clothes and appliances. We would sell everything to criminals and buy cannabis.
“When I was arrested, I learned a lot about the world of crime. I knew prominent criminals, including some senior members of the Jerusalem mafia of the time, people like Eli ‘Magician’ Naim and Yitzhak Bar Moha. When my father heard about it, he was very angry. He wanted to keep me away from the world of crime. And he decided that we would move from Jerusalem to Bat Yam. ”
And it helped?
“There we would continue to break in and steal – army bases, shops, anything that had valuables in it. After that my parents decided to transfer me to the kibbutz, but there I went back to using drugs. I did not enlist, but my father tried to rehabilitate me and I started working. I had a business. “Prosperous, I would install security measures in businesses. Then I got entangled in nonsense, nonsense that stemmed from ego and ruined my life.”
It happened one evening in November, 1988. Ezekiel came to install a security system in the barracks of his good friend. He came across an old acquaintance, Moshe Mefdali. According to Ezekiel, Peddler criticized his work, got down on him. The police gave another version, according to which Pedli slapped him. According to the same version, Ezekiel stabbed Peddler in the lower body in response.
“This is what they wrote in the indictment,” Ezekiel says today. “In fact this is a person who treated me very rudely. A few months before he quarreled with me because I refused to give him a cigarette. In front of people he picked me up in the air and threw me in the bushes. He humiliated me, just because I refused. On the day of the murder he mocked me for my work. People. I do not know what happened to me. After an hour and a half I returned to the place with a good friend and mine and a knife in my hand.
“I was looking for him frantically, and in the end I found him near his house. When he insulted me in front of everyone I felt the thorns on my body again from the previous time, then when he threw me into the bushes. I had a flashback. I ran towards him madly, pulled out the knife “Then I ran away and threw the knife into the bushes. It collapsed and later died in the hospital. Some people who were in the area grabbed me, beat me and called the police.”
An indictment was filed against Ezekiel for murder, and an indictment was filed against his friend for murder because he did not act to prevent the murder. Ezekiel claimed to have acted in self-defense and insisted that Pedaldi was the first to pull out a knife and try to stab, but the judges rejected his version. Ezekiel was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. The appeal he filed was unanimously dismissed by the Supreme Court. “The assault was premeditated,” the Supreme Court justices wrote, “the deceased did not want a confrontation. There was no act on the part of the deceased that could have endangered the appellant. And the use of the knife was not necessary for defense or escape.”
“In South America the worst prisons in the world. For one penny people are being murdered here, On one apple. Without money in a place like this you die, not counted at all “
“I was wrong, it’s obvious,” Ezekiel strikes at sin. “In those moments I saw everything black. The ego overcame the mind and it should not have happened. I should not have murdered anyone no matter what he said or did to me. I should have restrained. But it happened, and since then my life has gone through a crazy upheaval that few criminals in the world were Embryos. ”
Jungle, not a prison
The conviction for the murder brought Ezekiel to the next point in his worldwide criminal journey – the Be’er Sheva prison, which at the time was one of the most dangerous and difficult in Israel and hosted, among others, the then top criminal world leaders, Herzl Avitan and Shemaiah Angel. My good “).
“It was a jungle, not a prison,” Ezekiel recalled. “The conditions were very difficult, there was no value to human life. I also did not knock an account, I had nothing to lose at all so I made a mess to improve the conditions. “Sabotage of officers’ offices. I planned with other prisoners to hold prisoners hostage in order to escape from prison. I was brainwashed, I wanted to send them a message that I was not being tampered with. I had a life sentence on my head anyway.”
“I ran to Moshe Bamok, I pulled out the knife and stabbed it several times in the leg and chest. Then I ran away and threw the knife into the bushes. He collapsed and died in hospital “
Ezekiel did not intend to complete his imprisonment and devised an escape plan from the land. But in order to realize it, he had to first go on leave from prison. As an inmate with a high profile and a degree of dangerousness like his, a vacation seemed like a distant fantasy. It was only after eight years in prison that he applied for a first leave.
“I made an escape plan from the movies,” says Ezekiel with a smile, “I just had to go on a 24-hour vacation. But the IPS refused, claiming that I was a dangerous criminal close to the criminals and that there was a danger that I would escape from prison and not return. I had to find a way to work on them, convince them I was going back to jail and not running away. After months of struggle, they agreed that I would go out for 24 hours in favor of a relative’s wedding. I did not need more than that. ”
First, they got him a fake passport for NIS 5,000: “The problem was that I did not have a picture of myself to stick on the passport,” he recalled. “Before I left the prison I saw that there was no one in the prison and I knew that there was a board with small pictures of all the prisoners. I managed to get my picture. Another question was where to fly. In Europe I would be caught and immediately extradited to Israel. To organize a new life, so I chose to go there. ”
With the help of the fake passport, he boarded a flight from Israel to the Netherlands. His file contained phone numbers of contact persons in Colombia, whom he had received from inmates with whom he had previously served time in prison. “One of them called his friend from Colombia from prison,” says Ezekiel. “I want him. Only when I told him I was the pregnant woman did he drop the token.”
Enough, enough for me
In Colombia, Ezekiel was exposed to the largest cocaine industry in the world, the one we learned about from Narcos on Netflix. It was not long before he himself headed a drug cartel that operated dozens of Israeli couriers. “We rolled in billions of dollars, no less, from selling cocaine to the whole world,” says Ezekiel. “I really was no less powerful and powerful than Pablo Escobar.”
“My life story is fascinating. When I see in prison series about criminals like Pablo Escobar, some of them are completely imaginary stories, I understand that my story is worth a lot more“
After a period in which he passed under the radar of the Colombian law enforcement authorities, Ezekiel turned towards the Peruvian market. But there was one obstacle in the way. “I was stopped at the airport in Bogota,” he says. “Checked if I was smuggling cocaine and found nothing. Then they checked my passport because they suspected it was fake, they were not sure, so they contacted the Israeli consulate in Bogota. I suspected someone had reported me. Luckily it was late at night and no one was there to “Check my passport. I bribed one of the workers at the place for $ 8,000 in cash and he allowed me to fly to Peru. If I had stayed there for a few more hours, they would have found out that the passport was forged and the State of Israel wanted to extradite me.”
Ezekiel settled in Lima and established another drug empire, in which he sent cocaine-filled containers by sea to Europe and Asia. Some of the containers were seized in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. “Now there is a death sentence on my head,” he says, “I was not tried. Probably someone from the network reported me. Some of them were arrested in Peru and sentenced to 20 and 30 years for drugs and money laundering. I was involved in between ”
Ezekiel is in good contact with his old friends in the country, including the one who was an accomplice in the murder of Pedli and ran 12 years in prison. “They are an integral part of my life,” he says, “but I will not return to Israel. I’m fine in Peru. When I’m released from prison, I hope not to return to the cocaine business. Enough, enough for me. 32 years in prison, it’s time to enjoy life.”
Ezekiel writes a diary about his life, and the plan is to publish a biography and a series or a movie. “My life story is fascinating,” he says, “when I see in prison series about criminals like Escobar, some of them completely imaginary stories, I realize my story is worth a lot more. I’m sure something very big, bigger than your Tinder crook will come out soon. The whole world will know Who is Uzi Yehezkel? ”