to eat more fiber. chewy, oatie, gooeyness... and fraudulence. i'm in deep, babe. you certainly are. [ male announcer ] fiber one. >> narrator: in this episode of "american greed"... solomon dwek is an expert flimflammer. >> here was a guy that ran a $400 million real-estate ponzi scheme in his head and on the back of a napkin. >> narrator: dwek then commits a $50 million bank fraud and becomes an informant in the biggest case of corruption and greed in new jersey history. >> dwek was starring in a movie that only he knew was being shot. it sounds like a guy channeling "goodfellas." >> whatever the script is for ponzi schemes, frauds, cooperation, rip it up and throw it out. this one's different.

>> narrator: in the early morning of july 23, 2009, more than 300 fbi and other federal agents fan out across new jersey and brooklyn, new york. they're positioned outside orthodox jewish synagogues and million-dollar mansions along the jersey shore. >> this was the biggest roundup of corruption in new jersey state history. that is saying something. >> narrator: graft is nothing new in the garden state. >> there literally have been more than a hundred, perhaps approaching 200, arrests in just the last few years out in new jersey, where politicians and municipal officials have been caught taking bribes. and almost all of them have been convicted. >> narrator: at 6:00 a.m., the go-ahead is broadcast from fbi central command in newark. >> newark c.p. to all teams --

execute, execute, execute. >> narrator: and like a well-choreographed dance, arrest teams start knocking on doors. acting u.s. attorney ralph marra, a 25-year veteran prosecutor, waits anxiously for news from the field. >> we're waiting to hear reports on how they did. did they make the arrests? were there any problems? what did they find in evidence? >> this is n-g team 3. subject is in custody. >> narrator: in all, the teams arrest 44 people. and one-by-one, they parade past a swelling sea of reporters into the fbi's newark headquarters for processing. wnbc's jonathan dienst is the first television reporter on the scene. >> they literally are carting the suspects away by the busload here. we had a sense that this was gonna be a big case. we did not know the details. but then when you started seeing just the sheer volume of car

after car pulling up in front of the fbi's offices in new jersey, that was when it really hit me that, "my goodness, this is going to be huge." >> we saw rabbis being walked in with yarmulkes on, and politicians coming in. we saw political operatives being walked in. there was the deputy mayor of jersey city, who we later found out was a former stripper back in days of burlesque. the characters themselves made it surreal. >> narrator: and as the criminal complaints are made public, they lift the veil on systemic corruption -- brazen, even by new jersey standards. >> the initial complaints, as they first came out, alleged massive bribery of ranking politicians, along with money laundering of incredible amounts associated with ultra-orthodox community leaders, rabbinic figures. and then what stunned everybody was an illegal kidney brokering

scheme that had been uncovered. >> narrator: the complaints are based on hundreds of hours of secret surveillance tapes captured by one person -- a mysterious "c.w." or cooperating witness, who had committed bank fraud some three years earlier. >> you follow the press release, you follow the indictment, and you get a clear roadmap that there was an informant involved. and we quickly learned it was solomon dwek. >> narrator: to understand solomon dwek, you have to understand where he comes from -- deal, new jersey, home to one of america's wealthiest syrian sephardic jewish communities. sam antar grew up in the sephardic jewish community in brooklyn. >> it's a tight-knit community that traces its origins back to 1492, the spanish inquisition. they were expelled from spain, and they moved to north africa and countries in the middle east. to survive the discrimination that they encountered, they maintained a very insular

culture, to stay together. >> narrator: solomon is the son of the rabbi of the synagogue of deal. >> within that community, the rabbi meant everything, and that gave solomon a level of credibility even within a very insular community. >> narrator: but instead of following in his father's righteous footsteps, dwek learns how to pay people off to get what he wants. it's a lesson he learns in high school. >> solomon admitted that he paid off a teacher in his high school to pass him in math, 'cause he was gonna fail math. so he paid him $50 and earned a passing grade. >> narrator: at 19, dwek gets his first taste of "the deal." >> one of his father's friends offers him a deal to flip a house. solomon is going to fix up the house, and they'll split the profits.

and that's his first entrance into real estate. >> narrator: at 23, solomon dwek meets and marries 19-year-old pearl sutton, whose family also belongs to the deal synagogue. >> to you, living outside the community, solomon dwek may be a george costanza from "seinfeld," but within the community, he's a george clooney. he has all the elements that gain people's trust. and people want to be part of his life. >> narrator: soon, dwek puts his people skills to good use as chief fundraiser at the deal yeshivah, a jewish day school. >> he was taking more than $200,000 a year doing this. his wife was making $100,000. we talked to teachers and administrators at the deal yeshivah. nobody ever saw either one of them. >> narrator: but dwek's idea of fundraising is blatantly illegal. he uses a common tax dodge that appeals to wealthy donors.

journalists josh margolin and ted sherman detail dwek's scams in their book "the jersey sting." here's how the tax dodge works -- a donor will write a check to the school, let's say, in the amount of $100,000. of that hundred thousand, the school takes 10% and dwek takes 5%. >> out the backdoor, $85,000 comes back to the donor, so the donor then is allowed to take a full $100,000 tax deduction as a charitable donation. >> it worked out well for the religious school 'cause they were getting 10% of the donation. it worked out well for the donor because he got credit on his income taxes for a $100,000 donation. it just didn't work out too well for the i.r.s. >> narrator: for dwek, it's working out so well that he branches out to other religious charities to launder even more money. >> among certain sub-elements of the community, it's a "cook the

books" culture, where the government is not entitled to any of their money. so, they will not pay taxes at just about any cost. they will not record transactions. they'll do whatever they can to evade and not pay their fair share of taxes. >> narrator: but for all the money moving through the yeshivah, the dweks live modestly by jersey shore standards in their $1.2 million home. >> he didn't seem to be the kind of guy who wanted the money in order to live the high life. it seemed like the money was just a secondary piece of it. he was addicted to the adrenaline of the deal, of the chase. >> narrator: by 2000, dwek's other business -- fixing up and flipping real estate -- is going gangbusters. and like a crazed monopoly player, he starts buying up properties, from offices and retail space to a sandwich shop. >> nothing was on paper when they made these deals.

it was all in solomon's head. and the deals are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. >> narrator: the 28-year-old real-estate mogul is quickly becoming a big shot in the close-knit syrian community, and dwek sees an opportunity to prey on his own people. next on "american greed"... watch solomon dwek shepherd investors and banks into what he calls "schnookie," or bum deals. >> if you cared to really research what he was doing, it was a house of cards -- and it was pretty obviously a house of cards -- but everybody wanted to trust him. at every step, everyone wanted trust him. at every step, everyone wanted to trust him. all energy development comes with some risk,

but proven technologies allow natural gas producers to supply affordable, cleaner energy, while protecting our environment. across america, these technologies protect air - by monitoring air quality and reducing emissions... ...protect water - through conservation and self-contained recycling systems... ... and protect land - by reducing our footprint and respecting wildlife. america's natural gas... domestic, abundant, clean energy to power our lives... that's smarter power today.

>> narrator: by 2004, solomon dwek is revered in new jersey's syrian jewish community, and investors want in on his lucrative real-estate deals. >> within that syrian orthodox community, and within many jewish communities, there's a biblical prohibition against the charging of interest. so the way these deals were structured was, "i'm selling you

an investment." >> it's called profit participation. the investors figure solomon is buying something and then is going to turn it around very quickly. there's the profit. >> narrator: but dwek isn't selling the properties. he's using new investors and bank loans to fund a multi-million-dollar investment scam. >> he was mortgaging properties two and three times over to generate a cash cushion for himself. in some cases, he was getting loans on properties he actually didn't even own, and he was using that money to pay off investors. >> narrator: dwek even ropes his rich uncle into the scheme. >> his uncle joey saw this success and came up to him one day and said, "everybody's in real estate. how do i get involved in this?" and solomon didn't blink an eye. he said, "well, i have this property. it's gonna cost you 'x' amount of dollars and will pay off in 60 days." and he was hooked. >> narrator: without any due diligence, dwek's uncle joey puts up nearly $60 million of

his own money and cash he borrows from banks. it's not long before dwek notices that no one -- not his uncle, not even his lenders -- are keeping a close eye on what he's doing. >> on the face of it, i think people waived the due diligence because the vestiges of success and credibility were all over him. i think it almost would have looked, in the community, as insulting to pry further. >> narrator: by 2006, dwek's empire grows to more than $400 million in private investments and loans from several banks, including hsbc. in a statement to "american greed," hsbc says it conducts "robust due diligence," but attorney dennis kearney says it seems the bank has been careless in lending to solomon dwek. >> they gave him loans on properties that didn't exist, properties he didn't own,

properties he did own and had already sold. you name it, he did it. >> narrator: but income from dwek's properties no longer covers the interest on all these loans, and he realizes he'll never be able to repay his creditors. >> and this is where the noose starts to tighten around his neck. he's into uncle joey for $50 million or $60 million. he's into other members of the community for $30 million. the banks are breathing down his neck, and now he needs, and cannot find, huge sources of capital. >> narrator: eventually, hsbc discovers that it, too, has been lured into dwek's "schnookie," or bum deals, and it's out $20 million. >> and so they make the demand insistently -- "you wire in that $20 million, or we're going to the lawyers and we're gonna blow this up." >> narrator: dwek assures the bank that the money will be wired first thing after the passover holiday to arrive on

monday morning, april 24th. but that morning, no wire goes through, and dwek has a meeting at the bank that afternoon. >> this guy's whole game is based on "i'm on to the next scam." so, where you or i would feel pressure, he doesn't feel any of that. he's on to the next scheme. what's the next scheme? "i'm gonna go kite a check." >> narrator: check kiting is one of the oldest frauds in the book. >> check kiting is simply moving money between or among accounts to create the illusion that there is money in the accounts which doesn't exist. >> narrator: dwek's plan is to access those nonexistent funds and wire the cash to hsbc. and on his way into hsbc, he makes a pit stop at the eatontown, new jersey, branch of pnc bank. dennis kearney, a former attorney for pnc, explains what happens next. >> he now pulls up to a drive-in

window, and he puts into the pneumatic tube a check in the amount of $25,212,000 -- a wacky amount. [ air whooshes ] >> narrator: the teller examines the check. it's made out to one of dwek's companies, drawn on a separate dwek business account at pnc. >> so, what she does is she logs in to the system to check the source of the funds. she turns around, and she goes, "solomon, you wrote this on a closed account." >> narrator: dwek casually shrugs it off and reassures her that pnc corporate is re-opening the account. >> pnc accepts the check, deposits it into the open business account, and the check is, of course, drawn on a closed business account. >> narrator: satisfied, dwek pulls away and heads to manhattan for his 4:00 meeting at hsbc.

>> it's a great moment for him. it's a challenging moment. it's a moment where, you know, a con-man really needs to step up his game, and dwek certainly did that. >> narrator: dwek waltzes into a conference room at hsbc, where he's met by the bank's chief credit and risk officer and a number of other executives. >> everybody is very angry over the fact that this loan is past due, and "where's the money?" and solomon says, "i have the money." >> they put him on a speakerphone. he dials the automated phone number. [ beeping ] and lo and behold, at the other end, the reporting indicates there is about $2,700 in the account with another $25 million about to clear. >> narrator: hsbc officials threaten that if the $20 million wire doesn't arrive from pnc bank by the next morning, they'll go to their lawyers. but dwek delivers and transfers the money to hsbc. his debt has been paid off. >> wire transfers, under federal

or state law, are complete the minute the "send" button is hit. it is irretrievable. >> narrator: but dwek can't leave well enough alone, and the next day, he presses his luck. >> he goes to another pnc branch and tries to do it again -- another $25 million. >> the tellers there take it, are about to credit his account, and one of the tellers there thinks "maybe i'd better check this." she calls up the head teller over in eatontown. >> narrator: eatontown is the same branch that dwek had ripped off the day before. >> and the head teller in eatontown said, "is solomon in that branch?" "yes." "is he trying to give you $25 million?" "yes." "don't do it." >> narrator: like a trumpet of doom, the teller refuses the deposit. >> they were frantic at pnc bank, because this was not a

small check-kiting scheme. this is $25 million that the bank is out right now, and they want to know where the money is. >> narrator: hsbc is not required to return the money to pnc bank, and in may 2006, pnc sues dwek and attempts to freeze his assets. >> this is the first crack in the dam. this is the moment when, suddenly, the house of cards is coming down. >> narrator: solomon dwek has now committed a $50 million bank fraud, a federal offense that could land him in prison for 30 years. next on "american greed"... solomon dwek's day of reckoning is close at hand. >> the judge, who i've known a very long time, he came nose-to-nose to me, and he said, "you have no idea what you're messing with." "you have no idea what you're messing with." and he was absolutely right.

[ male announcer ] it's a golden opportunity to experience the ultimate expression of power...

control. [ engine revs ] during the golden opportunity sales event, get great values on some of our newest models. this is the pursuit of perfection. [ female announcer ] gross -- i'll tell you what's really gross: used dishcloths. they can have a history that they drag around with them. for a cleaner way to clean try bounty extra soft. in this lab demo, one sheet of bounty extra soft leaves this surface 3 times cleaner than a dishcloth. it's super durable too. it's the cleaner way to clean. bring it with bounty extra soft. in the pink pack. and try bounty napkins. we're sitting on a bunch of shale gas.

there's natural gas under my town. it's a game changer. ♪ it means cleaner, cheaper american-made energy. but we've got to be careful how we get it. design the wells to be safe. thousands of jobs. use the most advanced technology to protect our water. billions in the economy. at chevron, if we can't do it right, we won't do it at all. we've got to think long term. we've got to think long term. ♪ to dabble with the idea of hybrid technology, it's already engrained in our dna. during the golden opportunity sales event, get great values on some of our newest models. this is the pursuit of perfection.

>> narrator: in may 2006, 33-year-old solomon dwek is the target of a civil suit filed by pnc bank alleging that dwek stole a whopping $22.8 million. the bank wants the judge to freeze dwek's assets to recoup its cash. >> i don't think he got up one day and said, "i'm gonna do a $400 million ponzi scheme." i think what happened was this was a deal junkie who just o.d.'d on what he loved doing. >> narrator: dwek's portfolio includes more than 400 properties, and it appears to be worth somewhere between $300 million and $500 million on paper. >> the judge freezes his assets. the asbury park press publishes that. everyone in deal and brooklyn sees it. you've now got your worst nightmare coming true. >> narrator: the courtroom is packed with dwek's investors. the judge, inundated by the

sheer number of creditors, appoints don lomurro as a fiscal agent to sell off dwek's properties. >> i was not expecting to have to send back to my office to get a box full of business cards so i could hand them out. it really showed how charismatic solomon was, how diverse his holdings were, how many people were affected. >> narrator: more than 80 banks, former business partners, and individuals file claims against dwek adding up to $338 million. >> the priority was, "can we help the people that have invested their lifetime savings?" and a number of those that first day came up to me with tears in their eyes, saying, "how could this be?" >> narrator: a little more than a week after pnc sues solomon dwek, the feds arrest him at his home and charge him with bank fraud. dwek knows he's in a tight spot, and the only way to avoid a 30-year prison sentence is to strike a deal with then-u.s. attorney

chris christie. but christie, who declined to be interviewed, is in no mood to play ball. >> chris christie is a strategic thinker. he was always committed to getting bigger and better cases, but it's a simple equation on his part. "i have a huge bank fraud, one of the biggest bank frauds ever in the state of new jersey. why would i get into a deal with this guy? there's no reason to do it." and that is the message that's basically sent back to dwek's lawyer over and over and over again. >> narrator: when dwek's attorney finally sits down with prosecutors, he serves up information about a large-scale money-laundering operation -- orthodox rabbis who had washed cash with dwek during his days at the deal yeshivah. but dwek also has something else to offer, something more enticing to prosecutors -- politicians on the take. christie's ears perk up. >> typically, in new jersey, you think it's a recipe for a bad

political move to be arresting a bunch of rabbis. christie was uninterested in it, but he wanted the corruption cases, so he went along. he put dwek on a very tight leash. >> narrator: in late 2006, solomon dwek is at the precipice. to become a cooperating witness, or "c.w.", he'll have to turn on his own people and lift the veil on systemic criminal activity that's been plaguing his community for years. dwek will have to become a moser -- a rat. >> a moser is hebrew for "informer," and it carries with it a tremendous stigma. jews were trained -- you don't turn on your own people and inform to the secular authorities, because of all the centuries of persecutions. >> if somebody gets caught and they help the government go after other people by agreeing to wear a wire, they're excommunicated. >> narrator: in january 2007, dwek makes a fateful decision and signs a cooperation agreement to go undercover for

the government. in exchange, the feds will recommend a reduced sentence. but without knowing how far dwek will take the government, chris christie makes no promise of how much time he'll spend in prison. prosecutors will just have to wait and see. >> the fbi and corruption prosecutors in the u.s. attorney's office were able to convince chris christie to green-light this case purely on the basis of, "there's plenty of smoke, so there must be fire." >> narrator: when "american greed" returns... solomon dwek goes undercover, with a camera rolling.

i don't spend money on gasoline. i don't have to use gas. i am probably going to the gas station about once a month. drive around town all the time doing errands and never ever have to fill up gas in the city. i very rarely put gas in my chevy volt. last time i was at a gas station was about...i would say... two months ago. the last time i went to the gas station must have been about three months ago. i go to the gas station such a small amount that i forget how to put gas in my car. ♪

>> narrator: by march 2007, solomon dwek, the fbi's new informant, is wired up and ready to go to work. the operation has two targets -- ultra-religious money launderers and corrupt politicians.

>> the fact that he was a past crook, or an accused crook, in some ways, gave him some street cred, gave him some credibility to perhaps pull off and be involved in this money-laundering scheme. those in his own community perhaps, you know, would not think that he would be cooperating with the fbi and would turn on his own community. >> narrator: this is the first big test for dwek, who must prove to prosecutors that he can stay on script and get the job done. >> in his rap with the bad guys, he would lay it out, out loud, "i'm trying to launder this money. i'm trying to take it out of the bankruptcy without the bankruptcy trustee or the bankruptcy court knowing about it. can you convert it into clean cash for me?" >> narrator: ralph marra, first assistant to u.s. attorney chris christie, says one of dwek's early money-laundering targets is an orthodox real-estate developer. >> amusingly, his office was over a laundromat, and he often referred to what he was doing --

he related it to washing machines. >> narrator: those "washing machines" are a complex, international network of religious charities, rabbis, and couriers. >> at the start, when dwek was trying to launder only $35,000 $40,000, the rabbis didn't want any of that action. it was too small for them. if they were putting themselves out, they needed bigger dollar figures. we're talking about transactions that were easily $80,000 at a pop, $100,000, $200,000. >> narrator: one launderer introduces dwek to another, and soon, dwek's network grows to more than 15 people, including five orthodox rabbis. >> it was a group of organized criminals, and they had a whole system in place on how they did this. they had very strict rules for dwek about not speaking about what they were doing. >> narrator: these rabbis hide their disgraceful deeds behind a façade of righteousness, and

they use jewish charities as a front. among them is rabbi mordchai fish, one of dwek's most productive launderers. >> fish is a fascinating character. he's a funny guy. he says funny things to dwek on surveillances. he leaves messages but doesn't actually leave messages. he gets on the phone and starts singing on dwek's voicemail. >> [ singing in hebrew ] >> he spoke in code. he wouldn't identify other people by name. i mean, all the trappings that would go with somebody who's in an organized criminal enterprise but is very shrewd, almost to the point of paranoia, about becoming detected. >> in "the sopranos," they would talk about thousands of dollars as boxes of ziti, so in fish's case he would -- instead of

boxes of ziti, because that's not in the hasidic tradition -- he would talk about money as a gemara. the gemara is part of the talmud. >> narrator: dwek quickly becomes one of fish's best customers, washing $585,000 and receiving the cash in boxes of apple jacks cereal. and though the money-laundering investigation is paying off, by the end of 2007, dwek has made little headway into the political-corruption side of the investigation, and u.s. attorney chris christie is nearly ready to close up shop. >> chris christie had been hard on them at this point in saying, "we're not getting anywhere. we only have a bunch of money-laundering cases. where are my corrupt politicians?

this case is going nowhere." >> narrator: but then, in early 2008, dwek slices into a whole new part of the investigation. >> in one meeting, that the feds describe to us in great depth, they turn to christie with smiles on their faces, and they say, "we have somebody who's selling illegal kidneys." >> narrator: that person is levy izhak rosenbaum, a real-estate broker from brooklyn who sells the parts for 150 grand apiece. >> this is another rock that we turn over, and it turns out there's all this slime underneath it. the circumstances of grabbing some impoverished person and bringing them over here and grabbing one of their kidneys for maybe $10,000 and then turning around, selling it for $120,000, $150,000 not good circumstances. >> narrator: dwek needs no introduction, as his own grandfather had purchased a

kidney through rosenbaum. so dwek reaches out to the broker with the line that he needs a kidney for his secretary's uncle. nine months later, rosenbaum finds a donor, and in november 2008, the feds realize the investigation could take a perilous turn. >> we obviously didn't want it to go past a certain point, past the point when somebody was being cut open. dwek had arranged various excuses to put off actually bringing the person over to do the deed. >> narrator: at the feds' direction, dwek puts rosenbaum

on ice and refocuses his energies on netting corrupt politicians -- u.s. attorney chris christie's main objective. >> it was really part of chris' m.o. that he was usually impatient with investigations, that he didn't want to do anything to screw it up. but it was always, "let's move this. let's get it done. when can we get this done?" >> narrator: but in december 2008, christie steps down, and ralph marra becomes acting u.s. attorney. it's now more important than ever that dwek deliver corrupt politicians before the appointment of the next u.s. attorney, who could put a stop to the whole operation. next, the feds clean up dirty jersey. >> often, when you think about these payoffs and these corruptions, you think mafia. you think narcotics trafficking. solomon dwek doesn't really fit into that paradigm. so, in some ways, he's the

perfect undercover. >> narrator: to see more undercover videos, go to americangreed.cnbc.com or tweet us @americangreedtv. americangreed.cnbc.com or tweet us @americangreedtv. we'll be right back.

two years ago, the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf. and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it. bp has paid over twenty-three billion dollars to help people and businesses who were affected, and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy --

and many areas are reporting their best tourism seasons in years. we've shared what we've learned with governments and across the industry so we can all produce energy more safely. i want you to know, there's another commitment bp takes just as seriously: our commitment to america. bp supports nearly two-hundred-fifty thousand jobs in communities across the country. we hired three thousand people just last year. bp invests more in america than in any other country. in fact, over the last five years, no other energy company has invested more in the us than bp. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. today, our commitment to the gulf, and to america, has never been stronger. >> narrator: by 2009, solomon dwek has been working as an undercover informant for the feds for nearly two years. journalist ted sherman. >> he is being set up with

rabbis laundering tens of thousands of dollars. he's being set up with politicians. he's driving from brooklyn, to queens, to monmouth county, to jersey city. he is eating in one restaurant after another. when did he have time to sleep? >> narrator: so far, dwek has uncovered a massive, international money-laundering scheme and a human-organ-trafficking operation, but he has yet to pull in any corrupt public officials. >> what the u.s. attorney's office is trying to do is use the money-laundering operation as a means to getting into the political-corruption end of what they're really interested in. >> narrator: it's through one of these launderers that dwek is introduced to a crooked building inspector. >> that introduction leads dwek to political fixers and consultants who are close to political officials, and the fixers, in turn -- they refer dwek to better plugged-in

players, and that takes him into the inner sanctum of ranking politicians. >> narrator: dwek assumes the name "david esenbach," a name given to him by one of the money launderers who was nervous about dealing with the infamous solomon dwek. >> david esenbach came in, and his spiel was, he wanted to build beautiful luxury developments in northern new jersey. the one he used most was that he was going to build a luxury high-rise condo on a chromium waste dump in jersey city, and he needed to fast-track the approval process, and that's how he lured the politicians in. >> narrator: dwek's payoffs arrive via fedex envelopes. >> when you saw a fedex envelope come out of solomon's car or out of his jacket, you knew a payoff

was about to be made. >> narrator: that spring, dwek is in jersey city looking for approvals and mayors on the take. >> there's a series of elections that are about to occur, springtime elections, in jersey city, in hoboken, and he finally finds himself at a meeting set up by one of the fixers, sitting across from the deputy mayor of jersey city, leona beldini. >> narrator: leona beldini is a well-known jersey city real-estate broker and one of mayor jerry healy's closest confidants. beldini also has a colorful past as the burlesque dancer "hope diamond, the gem of the exotics." the feds hope beldini will pave the way to mayor healy. >> dwek pitched the building on the chromium site and pitched that he wanted to exceed the zoning, and could she help? he was prepared to give political contributions, but he needed to know that they were

promising to get him what he wanted. >> narrator: it's not just beldini's boss who will benefit. she'll get a piece, too -- exclusive brokerage rights to dwek's bogus development on the chromium waste site. hoboken, jersey city's neighbor

to the north, is also in the midst of a mayoral election. >> after dwek has this great series of good-luck moves meeting the fixers, the fixers get a real appetite for dwek, and they start aggressively courting dwek to bring him in for other politicians. and the big game there is peter cammarano. >> narrator: 31-year-old peter cammarano is contesting a very expensive mayoral run-off that may. >> he had everything going for him. he was a young, bright election lawyer, married, with a baby -- the bright, young, next generation of leaders in that town. >> narrator: but there's one thing standing between cammarano and his dream job -- cash. he doesn't have any. >> so, the fixers reach out to dwek and say, "we want to hook you up with peter cammarano. you're a guy with a lot of money to spend.

he's a candidate who needs a lot of money. let's make a marriage." >> narrator: dwek meets with cammarano and his middlemen here, at the malibu diner in hoboken. >> cammarano was a much more willing accomplice in this, and so he went far beyond what they even were hoping, back at the fbi. and cammarano himself elaborated, "the people who are with me get to the front of the line." he was actually filling in the blanks for the feds. >> and with cammarano, one of his lines was, the people who are against him get ground into dust, which was basically, you know, the killer line for the prosecutors. they felt that that just was a home run for them. >> narrator: cammarano barely edges out his run-off opponent by 161 votes, becoming hoboken's youngest mayor. and by the time he is sworn in on july 1st, the feds sense that it's time to stop the investigation. >> the agents are tired.

they're exhausted. a ton of money has been spent on the corruption cases and on the money laundering. some of the money-laundering cases are now years old, and the evidence could go stale. dwek needs to begin the end. >> narrator: the feds set the date of july 23rd for their takedown, and it's now up to solomon dwek to set up targets ranging from money launderers to mayors. >> the feds like arresting money launderers with cash on them. in the case of the political corruption investigations, what they do is they set up meetings a day or two in advance of the arrests. dwek will pass a bribe. these guys will hopefully, to the feds, still have their bribes on hand, so they can arrest them with the cash as evidence. >> narrator: next on "american greed"... the feds execute one of the biggest raids in new jersey history. >> i liken it to just weeding the garden. you've got to keep weeding, weeding, weeding.

it might even be tedious, but if you don't do it, the weeds it might even be tedious, but if you don't do it, the weeds take over. ♪ atmix of energies.ve the world needs a broader that's why we're supplying natural gas to generate cleaner electricity... that has around 50% fewer co2 emissions than coal. and it's also why, with our partner in brazil,

shell is producing ethanol - a biofuel made from renewable sugarcane. >>a minute, mom! let's broaden the world's energy mix. let's go.

>> narrator: july 23, 2009, 6:00 a.m. more than 300 fbi and other federal and local law-enforcement officers are in position across the tri-state area. >> to send out an arrest, you're not sending out one or two people. you're usually sending out at least six, maybe more. and if it's accompanied by a search warrant, the search-warrant team could easily be 10, for example, or more. >> narrator: when the teams finally get the go-ahead, they spring into action, arresting 44 people. >> when these arrests happened, they were coming in by the carload. when they left the fbi office, they were leaving by the busload. they were taking them out by the dozens and putting them onto

buses, because there were so many suspects in this case, they had to be bused to court. >> narrator: as media inquiries pour in, acting u.s. attorney ralph marra prepares for the largest press conference ever held inside the u.s. attorney's office. >> today, we're here to announce the takedown of a large-scale, dual-tracked investigation. on the public-corruption side, the fbi and the i.r.s. have arrested and noticed for arrest 29 individuals, including assemblymen and mayors. on the other side, the fbi and i.r.s. have arrested and summoned 15 members of connected, international money-laundering rings, including five rabbis and their associates. >> narrator: on july 31st, hoboken's new mayor peter cammarano resigns from office. he later admits accepting $25,000 in illegal campaign contributions, and he's

sentenced to 24 months in prison. >> the feds never thought that peter cammarano was the person who he ended up being. a lot of them actually knew him, and they were absolutely flabbergasted that he was for sale. >> narrator: 74-year-old leona beldini is the first defendant to be tried. she's convicted of taking $20,000 in illicit contributions. she's sentenced to three years in prison and a $30,000 fine. >> the judge pointed out that she had any number of opportunities to say "no," to think twice about it, to do her due diligence, and at no point did she ever do it. >> narrator: kidney broker levy izhak rosenbaum pleads guilty to human-organ-trafficking charges. he is sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. in all, the money launderers wash more than $3 million for

solomon dwek, and rabbi mordchai fish pleads guilty to laundering nearly $1 million and is sentenced to 46 months in prison. >> the level of corruption among religious leaders is something that was remarkable to see -- a systematic scheme to launder thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, to have codes and processes set up and cash counters and cash couriers and secret channels. it strikes me that it's a corruption of leadership. and we're used to corruption of leadership among our political leaders, but it's worse on a lot of levels when you see it in the religious leadership. >> narrator: finally, in october 2009, solomon dwek stands before a federal judge in newark and pleads guilty to bank fraud and money laundering. he also pleads guilty to state charges stemming from his ponzi

scheme. a federal bankruptcy trustee is still trying to liquidate dwek's vast portfolio of properties. >> solomon dwek has a greed of the ego. the investors have a greed of a quick hit, money. what do the politicians have? they've got a greed of power. "this is gonna put me in a position of doing deals, being somebody big in my community." you know, no matter how you slice the baby, there's enough greed in this case for three tv shows. >> narrator: dwek still hasn't been sentenced, and when he is, he could serve up to 11 years in prison. but for dwek, banishment from his own community may be the greatest punishment of all. >> it's gonna be something that he's gonna have to live with his entire life. he will get out of jail one day, far earlier than he would have otherwise, but he's never going to be able to overcome the scarlet letter he's been branded

to be able to overcome the scarlet letter he's been branded with. -- captions by vitac -- these are sandra's "homemade" yummy, scrumptious bars. hmm?

i just wanted you to eat more fiber. chewy, oatie, gooeyness... and fraudulence. i'm in deep, babe. you certainly are. [ male announcer ] fiber one. trick question. i love everything about this country! including prilosec otc. you know one pill each morning treats your frequent heartburn so you can enjoy all this great land of ours has to offer like demolition derbies. and drive thru weddings. so if you're one of those people who gets heartburn and then treats day after day, block the acid with prilosec otc and don't get heartburn in the first place. [ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn.

what a bargain! [ female announcer ] sometimes a good deal turns out to be not such a good deal. but bounty gives you value you can see. in this lab demo, one sheet of bounty leaves this surface cleaner than two sheets of the leading ordinary brand. so you can clean this mess with half as many sheets. bounty has trap and lock technology to soak up big spills and lock them in. why use more when you can use less? bounty. the clean picker upper. i bought the car because of its efficiency. i bought the car because i could eliminate gas from my budget. i don't spend money on gasoline. it's been 4,000 miles since my last trip to the gas station. it's pretty great. i get a bunch of kids waving at me...