Colel Chabad Lubavitch Foundation of Israel

A CRA audit for the fiscal period of 2008-2009 uncovered that Colel Chabad had been selling official donation receipts to donors, for 10% to 20% of their receipted value. When it comes to filing one’s personal taxes, these receipts, it is important to note, have a value of upwards of 50% or more of the donated principle, meaning that Canadian charities actually create wealth. One of Colel Chabad’s clients, Dr. Lorne Wayne Sokol, gained notoriety for laundering money he had obtained by allegedly defrauding the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, through Colel Chabad. Sokol had incorporated a company in Belize, the Moshe Shmuel Deitsch Company, named for Colel Chabad’s self-claimed Israeli intermediary, Moshe Deutsch.

Through the Belizean company, Sokol (and potentially others) was subsequently repaid by Colel Chabad for between 80% to 90% of the principal they had donated to the charity. Colel Chabad appears to have netted 10% to 20% off the principle, while Sokol and other unnamed participants netted the value of a tax credit while recouping 80% to 90% of their Belize-laundered principle, meaning a net profit for donors ballparked at 130-140%.

Colel Chabad’s president, Abraham Neuwirth, would plead ignorance to the scheme. Colel Chabad’s secretary Zalman Zirkind, along with his brothers, however, were involved in a wider, international, narco-trafficking/money laundering scheme. In 2021, Zalman would be sentenced to 84 months’ imprisonment by a United States District Court for conspiracy to commit money laundering. Zirkind’s association with Colel Chabad, it should be noted, far outlived the charity’s exposure as a potential money laundering operation; he was listed as Colel Chabad’s secretary between 2000 until at least 2015, at which point the charity simply ceased updating its Board of Directors filings with the CRA.

See also

• Benzion Zirkind