Threats. A torched Bentley. Gunshots in the Hollywood Hills. <\/p>\n
A network of private, high-dollar poker games in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills has been roiled by shakedowns and violence perpetrated by alleged Israeli organized crime figures, according to a federal agent\u2019s affidavit filed last week in federal court. <\/p>\n
The document describes how a reputed crime figure, Assaf \u201cAce\u201d Waknine, allegedly tried taking a cut of the profits from a weekly card game in which players at times won and lost millions in a night. <\/p>\n
When the host of the game balked, the affidavit said, Waknine alluded to the 2023 death of Emil Lahaziel, who was shot in the face as he walked out of a poker game in the Hollywood Hills. <\/p>\n
\u201cI guess you really want to end up like your other b\u2014 a\u2014 poker buddy,\u201d Waknine wrote in a text message, according to the affidavit. <\/p>\n
The document was filed in support of charges against Waknine, 52, for transmitting threatening communications in interstate and foreign commerce. An Israeli national who was deported from the United States in 2011, Waknine is not in custody and believed to be living in Mexico, the affidavit said. <\/p>\n
His lawyer, Brett Greenfield, said Waknine denied having threatened or extorted people for money. \u201cThat\u2019s just not what he does,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Greenfield said he was trying to learn more about the charges from the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in Los Angeles and declined to comment further. <\/p>\n
In the affidavit, Homeland Security Investigations special agent Matthew Hernandez claimed Waknine and his brother Hai leveraged their \u201clongstanding reputations for violence to promote a climate of fear\u201d within Los Angeles\u2019 Israeli community. <\/p>\n
Hai Waknine, who was not charged in the case, previously served about six years in federal prison for racketeering. In his guilty plea, he admitted threatening to hurt businessmen if they didn\u2019t repay loans that originated from a pool of money embezzled from an Israeli bank. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Assaf \u201cAce\u201d Waknine shown in a photo included in documents filed by federal prosecutors that accuse him of attempted extortion linked to underground poker games.<\/p>\n
(U.S. Department of Justice)<\/p>\n
Assaf Waknine has been convicted of assault, burglary and forgery, Hernandez wrote. Waknine was also found guilty of illegal eavesdropping for cloning the pager and tapping the phone of a Los Angeles Police Department detective who was investigating him, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n
In the document, Hernandez alleged that Waknine collects debts, muscles \u201cprotection\u201d payments and resolves financial disputes in Los Angeles from afar. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou owe my partner some money,\u201d Waknine wrote in a message cited by authorities. \u201cAnd I want to talk about it nicely. Please don\u2019t upset me with phones games.\u201d <\/p>\n
In another message quoted in the document, he warned: \u201cPlay with us and our money [and] the SEC and feds will be your last f\u2014 issue. We explained to you in a very direct manner don\u2019t f\u2014 us. And you did.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cMy partners now want nothing but you,\u201d he allegedly added, \u201cand they will get it.\u201d <\/p>\n
The charges against Waknine center on his alleged ties to what Hernandez called a \u201ccottage industry\u201d of private poker games that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic in Los Angeles, catering to high rollers that ranged from \u201cA-list celebrities to wealthy entrepreneurs to professional and amateur poker players.\u201d <\/p>\n
According to prosecutors, Waknine tried to extort money from the host of a game where the buy-in started at $20,000. Cocktail waitresses \u2014 often models or social media influencers \u2014 attended to the players, along with a full staff of card dealers, bartenders, chefs, DJs, security guards and valets. By taking half of the staff\u2019s tips, the host \u2014 unnamed in the document \u2014 could make more than $100,000 in one night, the affidavit said. <\/p>\n
Beginning in May 2023, a series of arsons disrupted the games, Hernandez wrote. Just after midnight on May 21, 2023, three suspects set fire to a Beverly Hills residence where a game had been held.<\/p>\n
Three days later, four suspects set fire to a Bentley SUV that was parked outside a Benedict Canyon home where a poker party was being held, according to the affidavit. One of the suspects then fired shots into the house. <\/p>\n
On May 26, 2023, a suspect lobbed a Molotov cocktail at a car outside an Encino house associated with one of the game hosts, setting the car and house on fire, the document said. <\/p>\n
Two weeks later, Lahaziel was gunned down. <\/p>\n
Thirty-nine at the time of his death, Lahaziel had left behind a \u201clengthy\u201d criminal record in his native Israel, Hernandez\u2019s affidavit said, as well as owing $1.5 million in a bankruptcy case. In a Florida divorce petition, his wife claimed Lahaziel once told her that people wanted to kill him \u201cas a result of some of the activities he did out of the country.\u201d <\/p>\n
According to Hernandez\u2019s affidavit, phone records showed that Lahaziel was in communication with Hai Waknine, often trading texts about expensive watches and fancy cars. Then, shortly before his death, Lahaziel began sending \u201cinflammatory and threatening messages\u201d to the Waknine brothers, the agent wrote. <\/p>\n
The last night of his life, Lahaziel was playing poker at a rented home on Fareholm Drive when two men pulled up in a stolen Dodge truck, according to video played at a recent hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court. <\/p>\n
An LAPD detective testified that Ricardo Corral stepped out. Corral, then 29, was a thrice-convicted felon who\u2019d served prison terms for assaulting police, carrying a gun as a felon and shooting into a house, according to court records. <\/p>\n
The video showed Corral and Lahaziel speaking as Corral\u2019s companion, Jose Martinez Sanchez, turned the truck around and parked facing back down the narrow, winding street. Lahaziel went back inside and spoke to someone on the phone. Then Corral asked a valet to tell Lahaziel to come outside. As he walked out the front door, Corral shot him in the face and neck, prosecutors charge. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ricardo Corral, shown in an undated photograph, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Emil Lahaziel.<\/p>\n
(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)<\/p>\n
Corral and Martinez Sanchez, who have pleaded not guilty, were held on murder charges after a preliminary hearing in July. No trial date has been set. <\/p>\n
Lahaziel\u2019s death \u201creceived widespread attention and notoriety in the insular community of high-stakes private poker in Los Angeles,\u201d Hernandez wrote in the affidavit. Waknine, the agent claimed, alluded to the killing as he tried to get the host of the poker game targeted by arson to cough up $5,000 per game in \u201cprotection\u201d fees. <\/p>\n
After hanging up on Waknine, the man wrote: \u201cI don\u2019t know who you are and I\u2019m in a meeting.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cF\u2014 your meeting,\u201d Waknine allegedly replied. <\/p>\n
The man ultimately paid Waknine nothing, Hernandez wrote. He canceled his game after receiving the messages from Waknine, according to the agent, who cited a text exchange between the host and his security guard. <\/p>\n
The guard sent the host a link to a 1997 Times article about Waknine tapping the LAPD detective\u2019s phone. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou ok?\u201d the guard asked. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am ok,\u201d the host wrote. \u201cI just don\u2019t want to deal with that s\u2014.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Threats. A torched Bentley. Gunshots in the Hollywood Hills. A network of private, high-dollar poker games in Los…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":357371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[140291,1582,276,29418,4446,17286,174109,1910,91894,10754,17819,2961,224,2444,5337,6459,174110,48858,128494,174108],"class_list":{"0":"post-357370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-affidavit","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-charge","12":"tag-death","13":"tag-document","14":"tag-emil-lahaziel","15":"tag-game","16":"tag-hernandez","17":"tag-host","18":"tag-house","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-times","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-money","24":"tag-ricardo-corral","25":"tag-security-guard","26":"tag-text-message","27":"tag-waknine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115496996647402329","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}