Editor’s note: This morning, we’re happy to launch a new regular Sunday morning feature we’re affectionately calling ‘The Rabbit Hole.’ This weekly series, led by our reporting fellow, Peter Beck, picks a single federal court docket from the week and dives deep into the details. Our first story unpacks a thirty-five-page criminal complaint from the Central District of California that shines a light on the L.A. criminal underworld. The November editions of The Rabbit Hole will be free, then we’ll transition to a paywall for your soon-to-be favorite Sunday read. - Seamus
Inside The Arrest of a Purported L.A. Mobster.
Around 2:00 AM on the night of June 6th, 2023, an Israeli man named Emil Lahaziel walked out of a mansion in Los Angeles’ luxurious Hollywood Hills neighborhood. As he left, a man wearing a mask and a hood approached, fatally shooting Lahaziel twice in the face and neck. Now, another Israeli man with ties to organized crime, Assaf Waknine, is accused in federal court records of orchestrating the hit.
While Lahaziel’s murder took place, a group of people were gathered inside the mansion, playing poker. It was one of many games that had sprung up during the pandemic, catering to an elite clientele that included A-list celebrities and wealthy entrepreneurs. The exclusive games happened nightly, with rotating hosts for each day of the week, and reached into the millions of dollars won and lost. That night, the buy-in to play had been at least $20,000.
For the organizers, who earned more than $100,000 a night as the game’s host, it was a high-reward but also high-stakes business. The hosts had to keep their guests happy or risk a loss of reputation and an exodus of players, so a litany of professional services was offered that rivaled some high-end restaurants and nightclubs. Cocktail waitresses and chefs were brought in, with valets and private security on stand-by. Some even featured a DJ, cultivating a club-like atmosphere as the backdrop to the high-pressure gambling.
The other risk was that the poker games were entirely unregulated, meaning that law enforcement could intervene at any moment and spoil the game by charging the people involved, as with the recent high-profile case involving NBA Head Coach Chauncey Billups and All-Star Terry Rozier. The games also drew a criminal element beyond their very nature. With Rozier and Billups’ case, it was Italian organized crime families who were allegedly involved in the gambling and extortion racket. In Los Angeles, the FBI says it was an Israeli crime family who wanted in. This story is based on a series of federal court documents filed in the last week.
Though the groups lack much of the notoriety of their Italian Mafia counterparts, Israeli crime syndicates operate much the same way, relying on familial connections and operating in the shadows of other criminal activity. In a complaint in the case, the FBI describes how Israeli syndicates are primarily active in the U.S. around the New York, South Florida, and Los Angeles areas, while maintaining long-standing roots in Israel, and often target victims within or close to Israeli communities in America. As with the Italian Mafia, Israeli organized crime groups target their victims through ‘protection’ rackets, intimidating them with threats of violence to accept their security for an extortionate fee. When people resist, Israeli crime syndicates often pay members of gangs traditionally belonging to other ethnicities to do their bidding and commit violence, including kidnapping and murder.
Emil Lahaziel was no stranger to the Israeli criminal underground. Before immigrating to the U.S. to live in Los Angeles and South Florida, Lahaziel had an extensive criminal history in Israel, according to federal court records. He was also a regular participant in the elite poker ring, meaning he was financially well-off despite his significant criminal record.
In September 2022, officers with the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a reported assault and arrived to find the victim, Lahaziel, and an unidentified second Israeli man, who law enforcement identified as the alleged perpetrator and a co-owner of a poker game. An officer’s body-worn camera reportedly captured snippets of a phone call between Hai Waknine and the assault victim, with Hai telling the victim to “let it go.” The assault victim then purportedly proceeded to tell the officers that Hai Waknine was the “main mobster” and “head of the gang” that “tax[ed]” people in the Israeli community for protection. According to court records, the victim filed a police report listing Lahaziel and the unidentified man as the assault’s perpetrators, but he stopped short when officers offered to charge Hai, telling the officers, “they’ll fucking really kill us.”
Like Lahaziel, the Waknine brothers, Hai and Assaf, are Israeli-born men with extensive criminal records. In 1997, Hai was arrested in Los Angeles on the charge of kidnapping for ransom, which was later dismissed in “the interest of justice.” He later went on Israeli national television in 2023 to brag about dodging the charge. Hai also spent 4 years in federal prison on a conviction for racketeering in an apparently separate incident. The other brother, Assaf, who also goes by “Ace” and “Assi,” was deported from the U.S. in 2011 following convictions for seven felonies, including assault with a deadly weapon and eavesdropping for a case in which Assaf cloned an LAPD detective’s pager and wiretapped his telephone.
The two brothers, according to the FBI, led Los Angeles’ Israeli crime group together, with strong ties to other violent criminal gangs across California. The FBI said Hai and Assaf held a tight grip on protection rackets targeting the Israeli community while Assaf lived outside the U.S. in Mexico and Israel.
Shortly after the alleged assault, the apparent victim told LAPD officers that he was going to decline to press charges against all three men. A Los Angeles attorney also contacted the LAPD and sent a letter supposedly on the victim’s behalf to tell officers he had declined to press charges. The FBI says the attorney, Hai, and the assault victim then met at the attorney’s office, where Hai recorded portions of their conversation and took a picture of the letter. Later, when the FBI interviewed the assault victim, he again dismissed the incident. An FBI agent wrote that materials and lines of questions from that interview were then reported back to the Waknines.
At midnight on May 21, 2023, roughly two weeks before Lahaziel’s murder, a Hispanic man and two juveniles jumped over the fence of an upscale house in Beverly Crest that had recently hosted several nights of the exclusive poker game by the same organizer. The trio came armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a canister of flammable liquid, which they poured on the outside of the house. They then reportedly threw a Molotov cocktail and fled, leaving the house to burn.
Two days later, the Hispanic juvenile duo and two other men drove up at 3:30 AM to a home in Benedict Canyon that was hosting that night’s poker game by the same organizer. The suspects allegedly fired several shots into the house and torched a Bentley SUV parked outside. Three nights after that, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the home of the unidentified Israeli man, who was a co-owner of the poker ring and the alleged perpetrator of the assault. The FBI said Assaf Waknine orchestrated all three arsons.
The Waknine brothers reportedly had a falling out with Lahaziel and the unidentified Israeli man that same month. Court records do not indicate the source of the tension, but Lahaziel went from talking about luxury cars and watches with Hai and Assaf to sending them inflammatory messages, including on the day before his death. When Lahaziel was murdered, one of the men accused in the arson attacks allegedly served as the shooter’s getaway driver. The two were purported members of a Hispanic street gang with ties to the Waknines. Inside, the poker game’s organizer was the same host whom the arsonists had targeted in their first two attacks. The killing immediately reverberated across the L.A. poker community. Some hosts decided to stop their games altogether rather than risk becoming the next target.
It went all quiet for seven months, and then the threats began. On January 17, 2024, the game host on the night Lahaziel was killed got a text from an international number, “It’s A,” followed by a series of unanswered video calls within the span of several minutes. Two minutes later, Assaf allegedly wrote, “Hey m**** f***er[.] You want to piss me off.” The host responded, “I Don’t Know who you are and I’m in a meeting” (SIC). “F*** your meeting,” Waknine reportedly texted, “I guess you really Want to end up like your other bitch ass poker buddy.” The FBI verified the number belonged to Assaf by matching it to a contact name and texts in Hai’s phone, according to a criminal complaint in the case.
The FBI said Assaf then sent a series of texts, “Listen good m**** f****er. You better come clean direct with me. Play with us and our money [and] the SEC and [f]eds will be your last fucken issue. We explained to you in a very direct manner don’t fuck us. And you did.” … “please make sure you understand who this is. You a bit new to LA. If I called there is no option[,] you will understand.” Assaf’s demand, according to federal court records, was for the game owner to pay the Waknines $5,000 for each weekly poker game or $250,000 annually for “protection” and collecting debts from unlucky players.
On October 31st, Assaf was charged with transmitting threatening communications in interstate and foreign commerce for his alleged texts to the poker game host. His arrest was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, marking a significant break in the fight against Israeli organized crime in California. The FBI believes the entire saga – from the arsons, Lahaziel’s death, and the threats – was an attempt by Assaf to pressure the poker host into a protection racket. Neither Assaf nor Hai has been charged in connection with the arsons or Lahaziel’s murder, but federal court records allude to potential future charges in the case.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California declined to comment. An attorney for Waknine did not respond to a reporter’s inquiry. Prosecutors requested on Monday that a judge order Assaf to stay in jail until trial, citing his potential danger to the community and risk of flight.