An international “ecstasy” kingpin, accused of using beautiful, busty strippers recruited from clubs like Scores to smuggle millions of mind-bending pills into U.S. cities, was hauled into federal court yesterday after years on the lam in Europe.
Oded Tuito – an Israeli national accused of heading the world’s largest ecstasy ring – smiled and frequently interrupted as Brooklyn federal Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollack summarized the charges.
“Everything you told me I know,” Tuito, 41, said through an interpreter.
Flown in from Spain after fighting extradition for three years, Tuito – bearded and dressed in a T-shirt and athletic pants – pleaded not guilty to the 13-count drug-distribution and money-laundering indictment.
The alleged club drug lord – who has slimmed down since he earned the name “The Fat Man” based on his 240-pound physique – then made a special request through his appointed attorney, Gary Villanueva. He wanted kosher food in prison for Passover.
Tuito’s massive organization allegedly brought tens of millions of pills into the United States and funneled them into the hands of people like Gambino big John “Junior” Gotti and Salvatore “Sammy Bull” Gravano, authorities say.
Some of the pills made their way into Peter Gatien’s clubs, the feds claim.
To get the ecstasy here, Tuito’s underlings scoped out the country’s flesh pits – recruiting at least two-dozen busty beauties from relatively ritzy clubs like Manhattan’s Scores and Tens, law-enforcement sources said.
“A pretty girl coming back from Europe is less likely to get stopped. They always are trying to deflect attention from customs inspectors,” one law-enforcement source said. “Also, you have to look at who’s willing to do it.”
The leggy drug mules allegedly carried up to 60,000 pills at a time through various airports, in exchange for trips to Europe and $10,000 cash, according to court papers filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Linda Lacewell.
And when the feds realized he was using women, he instead used Hassidic high-school students to do his dirty work, authorities said.
Tuito’s ring allegedly supplied ecstasy to “house dealers” in Gatien’s clubs Limelight and Tunnel in the mid-1990s.
And several of his smugglers came from Scores on Manhattan’s East Side – a club Junior Gotti was tied to in 1996 – and Tens, which is also on the East Side.
A number of these women have turned on Tuito, copping pleas to smuggling charges, and are prepared to testify against him at trial, the source said.
Last May, President Bush added Tuito to the official international “kingpin” list – making him the only ecstasy peddler among 29 alleged drug lords who have received that designation.
Under the 1999 provision, authorities have frozen Tuito’s assets.
Even for Tuito to hire a private attorney, he must prove the cash isn’t coming from drug proceeds and receive special permission from the Treasury Department.
Pollack ordered Tuito held without bail and set a new court date for April 30.
Tuito’s massive ecstasy operation dates back to at least 1997, when he was hopscotching between new digs in New York, Los Angeles and France – and flooding U.S. cities with ecstasy pills from Paris, Brussels and Frankfurt, authorities say.
But by the late 1990s, Tuito was wanted by the feds in New York, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh – and faced charges in Israel.
He was first nabbed in January 2000 in Nice, France – where he lived in a luxurious villa with views of the sea – but managed to get himself freed by finagling French citizenship.
Authorities arrested him again the following year in Spain, where he was held pending extradition until this week.
Among the federal charges he faces in California are allegations that he continued to run his ecstasy ring from behind bars.
He’s facing 20 years to life in jail.