By Way of Deception

94 BY WAY OF DECEPTIONon a shelf, complete shell companies with an address, a registerednumber, just waiting to come to life. They even kept some moneyin these companies, enough to file tax returns and avoid raisingsuspicions. They had hundreds of such companies around theworld.At headquarters, five rooms were filled with the paraphernalia ofdummy companies, listed in alphabetical order, and set up in apull-out box. There were eight rows of shelves, and 60 boxes pershelf, in each of the five rooms. The information included a historyof each company, all its financial statements, a history of its logo,who it was registered with, anything at all that a katsa might beexpected to know about the company.* * *About six months into the course, we had a mid-term meetingcalled a bablat, an abbreviation in Hebrew of bilbul baitsim, whichmeans "mixing up the balls," or just talking and talking abouteverything. It lasted five hours.Two days before that, we had undergone an exercise in which mycolleague Arik F. and I were told to sit in a café on Henrietta SoldStreet near Kiker Hamdina. I asked Arik if he had come thereclean. He said he had. So I said, "Okay, I know I came clean andyou say you did, but why is that guy over there looking at us? Asfar as I'm concerned, this is over. I'm leaving."Arik said they couldn't leave; they had to wait to be picked up. "Ifyou want to stay, fine," I told him. "I'm gone."Arik told me I was making a mistake, but I said I'd wait for him atKiker Hamdina.I gave him 30 minutes. I figured when I left I would observe thecafé. I had the time, so I did a route, checked I was clean, cameback, and went up on the roof of a building where I could watchthe restaurant. Ten minutes later the man we'd been waiting forwalked in, and two minutes after that, police cars surrounded theplace. They dragged the two of them out and beat them senseless.I called in an emergency. I found out later that the whole episodewas a joint exercise