Mordechai Korf
Miami businessman and philanthropist, a claimant in United States civil forfeiture proceedings over alleged laundering of PrivatBank funds; he denies wrongdoing and has not been criminally charged in any source consulted
| Mordechai Korf
| |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Residence | Miami Beach, Florida |
| Occupation | Businessman; president of the Korf Family Foundation |
| Known for | Co-founding Optima International of Miami; named in the US civil forfeiture cases over PrivatBank |
| Parents | Abraham Korf and Rivka Korf |
| Sibling(s) | Eight, including Bentzion Korf and Yosef Yitzchok Korf |
| Education | Rabbinical studies in Brooklyn |
Mordechai Korf (known as Motti or Motty) is a Miami Beach businessman and donor to Chabad-Lubavitch institutions. He is a son of the Chabad emissary Abraham Korf, the president of the Korf Family Foundation, and, with Uriel Laber, co-founder of the Miami company Optima International of Miami.[1][2] He is named in United States civil forfeiture complaints and in a Delaware civil suit by PrivatBank, which allege that he helped the Ukrainian businessmen Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov (also spelt Boholiubov) launder money taken from that bank. These are allegations. Korf denies them through his lawyer, and none of the sources consulted reports a criminal charge against him.
Background
The Forward reported in 2020 that Korf, then aged 47, was the seventh of nine children of Abraham and Rivka Korf, who moved to Miami from Brooklyn in the early 1960s as emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. It said he studied for the rabbinate in Brooklyn and, aged 19, went to Ukraine on a humanitarian mission run by his father's organisation, citing a 2017 Miami Herald article.[2] Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) dated his arrival in Dnipro to 1991 and said Laber, whom he had met at a religious school in Detroit, arrived in 1994.[1] RFE/RL noted that the Rebbe had made the revival of Jewish life in Dnipro a priority and that the rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki had been sent there in 1990.[1]
Business
According to RFE/RL, Korf and Laber set up the Florida-registered Optima International of Miami in 1995.[1] RFE/RL, drawing on corporate records, said the two men ran four substantial businesses in the United States: a specialty steel company (Optima Specialty Steel, which it said filed for bankruptcy in 2016, with the loss of roughly $200 million that Korf and his partners had invested), a ferroalloy holding, a commercial real-estate business and an industrial tyre company.[1] It also reported that in 2010 two Ukrainian investors sued Korf in Florida, accusing him of stealing a 10 per cent stake in a Ukrainian telecommunications operator and parking it in an offshore shell company, and that the case ended when one investor dropped out and the other settled with him, according to court records.[1]
The Justice Department's complaint of December 2020 describes Korf as "a Miami-based business associate of Kolomoisky and Boholiubov" who "helped to acquire and manage the Ukrainian oligarchs' business empire in the United States", and as part-owner of dozens of US entities, often as president and chief executive, most with names based on "Optima".Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag
In a motion of 18 May 2023 the United States said all four forfeiture actions were "closely entwined with an ongoing criminal investigation", and that three of the four had been stayed since May 2021.[3] This is a dispute about the State Department's handling of a records request. It makes no finding on the PrivatBank allegations.
See also
- Uriel Laber
- Abraham Korf
- Korf Family Foundation
- Laber Foundation
- Chabad and Ukraine
- Chabad and fraud
- Ihor Kolomoisky
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Todd Prince, How Two U.S. Religious Aid Workers May Have Helped A Ukrainian Tycoon Launder Millions Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 19 August 2020, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Molly Boigon, They gave $25 million to Jewish nonprofits. Was some of that money laundered from Ukraine? The Forward, 21 February 2020, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ United States v. Approximately $9,105,221.62 in Funds (Plus Interest) ... Representing 95% of the Net Proceeds from the Sale of the Real Property Located at 500 West Jefferson Street, Louisville, KY, No. 1:20-cv-23278 (S.D. Fla.), United States' Motion to Stay Case No. 20-CV-23279 Pending Resolution of a Related Criminal Investigation, ECF 201, 18 May 2023, pp. 13 (library copy; no URL held).