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By Jay Bushinsky
February 19, 2010
The recent suicide of one of the most popular figures in Israel's tumultuous, but very lucrative world of professional basketball may have been caused by a local replay of Bernie Madoff's colossal Ponzi scheme.
Left in limbo by the champion Maccabi Tel Aviv team which he served as its unpaid, but highly-visible manager, 63-year old Moni Fanan died after hanging himself in his apartment's shower stall just over three months ago.
Until then, no one here except some of the players and a few trusted acquaintances knew that Fanan was running a clandestine bank that offered them 18 per cent interest on the money they deposited with him. Like Madoff, he kept paying his veteran clients from the funds acquired from newcomers.
Moshe Zingel, a prominent Tel Aviv attorney who was put in charge by a local court of the deceased's estate, said at least $40 million (U.S.) accumulated by Fanan literally vanished into thin air.
Efforts by the Israeli police and private detectives hired by Zingel to find out where he put it -- they contacted banks in Macao, Lichtenstein, the West Indies and Hong Kong – were to no avail.
The list of athletes who invested their money with Fanan reads like a Who's Who in European basketball. Anthony Parker, formerly of the Toronto Raptors and currently with the Cleveland Cavaliers, reportedly gave him $800,000 (U.S.), but managed to get this sum back before he left Israel four years ago for Canada.
Saronas Jaskevicius, a Lithunian known here by his nickname, Sharas, who also was a star during his stint as a guard with Maccabi Tel Aviv, is said to have invested a million Israeli shekels ($250,000 U.S.) with Fanan after which he went to the U.S. to play for the Indiana Pacers and the Golden State Warriors.
Currently he is with Panathinikos, a Greek team in the Euroleague. But neither he nor anyone else knows where his money is. Nikola Vujcic, a Croatian center, gave Fanan $1m (U.S.), Zingel said, and received little if anything in return. David Blatt, Maccabi Tel Aviv's deputy coach, lost $2m. (U.S.), Zingel went on.
(Now Blatt is head coach of Russia's national basketball team.) "I knew Fanan as a general manager, but like everyone else, I did not get to know him personally," Zingel said, recalling the jumps for joy, slaps on the back and smiles that were Fanan's TV trademark during all of Maccabi Tel Aviv's high-profile games.
"Maccabi Tel Aviv was his god and he acted as if it was his duty to serve it," Zingel went on. But Fanan seems to have transformed his unpaid devotion into a lavish source of income.
Besides stashing away or squandering millions of dollars, he is believed to have purchased six apartments in Tel Aviv, embarked on frequent trips abroad, especially to the U.S., and to have gambled in Las Vegas.
Fanan was a regular attendee at the NBA's summer camps for the past 25 years. After his summary dismissal from Maccabi Tel Aviv, he attended the NBA summer camp in Las Vegas and claimed while there that he was offered a post as manager of the San Antonio Spears and that he was close to the Spears' general manager, R.C. Buford.
"Fanan's family is broken-hearted," Zingel said, not only because of his sudden and untimely death, but also because he left his wife and children "with nothing." His daughter was seen and heard on Israeli TV saying this is "unbelievable." Like the police and private detectives, she too is scouring the world's banks in search of the missing money.
Mrs. Sharon Fanan has threatened to sue Maccabi Tel Aviv for her husband's unpaid salary. In response, Maccabi Tel Aviv's management issued a statement saying Fanan had worked for the team pro bono.
One of the events believed to have thrown Fanan's life into a tragic tailspin was
a decision taken two years ago by Maccabi Tel Aviv's tight-lipped owners, David Federman and Shimon Mizrachi, to fire him.
This was followed by what Fanan evidently regarded as the ultimate insult, two years after his compulsory resignation, Mizrachi, who also was a personal friend, did not invite him to his 70th birth day party, an event celebrated together with all of the biggest names in Maccabi Tel Aviv's history.
Mizrachi has adopted a sphinx-like pose with regard to the entire affair. He has declared publicly that he was totally unaware of Fanan's financial dealings with his players.
Indications that there was an ever-longer money trail behind Maccabi Tel Aviv might have detracted from the team's unique status as a national icon, but according to Shlomi Barzel, sports editor of the liberal daily Haaretz, this is not the case. "There is no proof that Fanan was involved in any of the monetary capers attributed to him in the local press and electronic news media," Barzel said. "Therefore, the stories to the contrary have had no effect whatsover on the fans."
Personally, Barzel, who knew Fanan well, shrugged off the tales of his supposedly-lavish lifestyle and expensive taste. These aspects may come up if the police decide to prosecute.
Fanan's former partner in a defunct firm known as "M.F. Enterprises," Zion Natan, has agreed to be a state witness, Zingel said.
The executor went on to describe Fanan's final hours. "He had four telephone calls that morning," he said. "The first three were routine and in one of them he made an appointment for later in the day. But the last one must have been extremely troubling.
According to Fanan's widow, Sharon Fanan, it came from Esteban Batista, a former Maccabi Tel Aviv power forward, who invested $800,000 with Fanan. Batista, an Uruguayan, now is with Baloncedo Fuentabrada of Spain's Liga ACB.
"For the previous three weeks, Fanan had given him the runaround, a tactic uncharacteristic of the seemingly-benign ex-manager, a reliable source said. Batista demanded that he get his money back. Immediately after that call Fanan hung himself.
The Israeli police have been tracing the numbers and callers who engaged Fanan in his last four telephone conversations, Zingel said.
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