"Unable to say his name": The prisoner who terrorized an entire city from a prison phone booth
Under the name "Yossi", Asaf Buskila is accused of running an empire of gambling and extortion from the rehabilitation wing of Shata Prison, which turned over millions and brought down hundreds of families in the north. With an attack dog that sank its teeth into debtors, a roulette wheel in a hideout apartment controlled by a magnet, insane interest rates, and a network of agents - he operated for years without anyone stopping him. Listen to the recordings: "I will bury his mother, I will speed up his inheritance."
They sat in the chair in front of the investigator, trembling, their mouths dry from anxiety. Outside the interrogation room, the police had already raided the homes of 27 suspects, but those who had suffered threats and severe humiliation, sometimes in front of their children and family members – still refused to let the explicit name out of their mouths. "My body won't let me say the word Yossi. I can't talk about him," one of them whispered. Hundreds of residents from Migdal HaEmek and the surrounding area, Jews and Arabs, were drawn into a cycle of gambling addiction and open debts. What started as a small bet on the internet or in a pirate casino quickly turned into a vortex of huge debts, murderous interest rates, and daily anxiety.
"Defendant 1 has a reputation as a violent criminal who deals, among other things, in providing loans on the 'gray market', gambling, and extortion with threats in a violent manner, in the Migdal HaEmek area." This is how he is described in the indictment filed against him by the Northern District Attorney's Office last month to the Nazareth District Court: the head of the gang, 30-year-old Asaf Buskila from Migdal HaEmek, whom everyone knows as "Yossi". The "Homa u-Migdal" (Wall and Tower) affair was investigated by a special investigation team (TzaHaM) of the Economic Enforcement Unit in the northern branch of Lahav 433, with investigators from the Israel Prison Service (IPS) intelligence unit, the Migdal HaEmek police, and the Tax Authority - and exposed a gang that terrorized and ruled unchallenged in Migdal HaEmek and the surroundings, in the world of illegal gambling that yielded millions in profits.
The Attack Dog
"Yossi" and his gang operated a pirate casino in a residential apartment, managed sports betting on the internet, gave loans on the gray market at interest rates of 5%-15% per month, while hundreds of people in the town and the surroundings, addicted to gambling, found themselves owing them tens and even hundreds of thousands of shekels. "Yossi" began his path working for local criminals in the north, but soon became an independent figure with status in the area. In 2020, he was sentenced to eight years in prison as part of a plea bargain and arrived at the rehabilitation wing in "Shata" prison. Starting in 2022, Buskila managed the operation from the public phone booth in the prison wing, where he stood for hours and conducted conversations in "G-language" (a coded slang) to disguise his actions. In his cell, he kept a notebook in which he wrote in dense handwriting the names of the debtors, the amount of the debt, and the status of payments.
"Yossi", who valued himself at "9 pieces" (millions), invested money in real estate, investments in Israel and abroad, and in cryptocurrencies. He operated the gang members from prison, including his wife, who managed the bank accounts and money transfers, and his mother. Most of the debtors addicted to gambling could not meet the loan repayments, and the gang knew how to collect the debts with violence and intimidation, including the winning card: the German Shepherd attack dog "Max", who more than once sank his teeth into debtors who lived in fear.
"Let him win, I'll fall on him"
Alongside the gambling on the internet, the gang operated a roulette wheel in a hideout apartment - and together they yielded "Yossi" an income of tens of thousands of shekels a month. During the investigation, the investigators discovered that the operators knew how to control the roulette and the number that would win. "At first they let the new gambler win, and when the appetite grew he lost his money. Of course, they volunteered to open him credit for further gambling," the police explain. In one of the conversations between them, the gang members are heard: "Let him win 20-30 thousand shekels on the roulette, and I will fall on him with hundreds of thousands of shekels that he will lose." Around the roulette, in the operation of which they used magnets capable of controlling the ball to fall on the number they aimed at, also sat dummy gamblers.
The debtors also eventually arrived at the interrogation room, and there after a journey of persuasion, revealed part of what happened. "Sitting in front of me was a father of children who told about small bets at the beginning, and that's how it grew to hundreds of thousands, until they reached the moment of a breaking point when he could no longer meet the interest repayments," describes in a conversation with ynet the investigator, Chief Sergeant Elinor Ben David. "He told that they sent him a message: 'If you don't bring the money I will kill you'. To another debtor they came home, to another they came to the workplace, and when they didn't find him they left a message for the employees at the place, who came from Migdal HaEmek."
The law firm Noy, Sananes, Sperling, Hatzroni, representing the defendants, stated: "The defendants deny what is attributed to them in the indictment and will provide their detailed response in court."
