Reputed Israeli crime kingpin Meir Abergil arrived in Israel as a free man on Thursday afternoon after brokering a plea bargain with a California court and confessing to extortion against alleged mobster Asi Vaknin and his brother Hai. The Vaknin brothers reached their own plea bargain with U.S. authorities and will testify in court against the Abergil family as part of the deal. Abergil and his brother Yitzhak, along with three of their associates, were extradited to the U.S. in January for a list of crimes in Los Angeles, including the murder of a local Israeli drug dealer. They are also suspected of drug trafficking, organized crime activity and money laundering. A slew of reporters and photographers joined family members at Ben-Gurion Airport to greet Abergil upon his return to Israel. It's a terrible embarrassment to Israel that an innocent man was extradited, Abergil said before hugging his children. According to the indictment, the Abergil brothers ran an extortion ring in Florida, lending money to businessmen and then issuing terrifying threats until it was paid back. The loans were funded by cash the Abergil brothers misappropriated from commercial banks, and were repaid with bills that had no commercial bank indications on them, making them difficult to trace. The indictment named Hai Vaknin as a victim of the scam. As part of the plea bargain, the California prosecution agreed to drop the charges of money laundering and of serving as a leader of a criminal gang, but upheld the charge of aiding extortion. Abergil's case will live in infamy in Israel's legal history, his attorney, Avi Amiram, said on Thursday. Israeli courts claimed there was evidence against him. If there was such evidence, the Americans would not have let him go.
