As Hezbollah missiles rained down on northern Israel and Israeli soldiers and bombs pounded southern Lebanon during the recent four-week conflict, some mobsters supposedly sought safe haven in other countries, including the United States, according to an organized-crime expert gathering intelligence on Israeli and Russian mob-run drug rings in the U.S.

"They ain't here to ring the Liberty Bell," a regional law-enforcement officer tells City Paper, "and I don't think they came to ride the Super Ducks."

The grizzled underworld veterans have seemed content to sip coffee in outdoor cafes and girl-watch as they conduct muffled conversations in English and Hebrew or hang out with local Israeli expatriates, sampling the nightlife.

"I hope they don't like it here," says the officer.

This isn't the first time Israeli mobsters have headed to our shores. Organized crime factions in Israel have been sending high-level members abroad for at least a decade. Many have settled in New York, Miami, Las Vegas and Los Angeles and set up drug rings, money-laundering operations and prostitution rackets while forging alliances with Russian organized-crime groups. They appear to be making big shekels, too; Israeli gangsters with cash to burn tried to obtain a gaming license to open a casino in Nevada.

These gangsters also have partners in America.

Locally, investigators are unsure whether the mobsters are here to wait out the war, scope out illegal business ventures or are just happy to be alive. After all, the bloody mob feuds raging in Israel are so out-of-control that five months ago, the U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory warning Americans about gangland violence there.

Israel's war with Hezbollah has temporarily interrupted the mayhem between the 11 criminal families in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the rest of the country. For the last five years, two hyper-violent gangs have been shooting it out for control of drugs, loan sharking, prostitution, extortion and money laundering. Rival mobs have used anti-tank missiles and bombs to try to bump each other off, often killing innocent bystanders in the process.

The bombings have outraged law-abiding citizens already traumatized by numerous deadly attacks carried out by Palestinian suicide bombers. One bomb set off by gangsters in Tel Aviv in December 2003, killed three passersby, wounded 18 others and destroyed an entire building; but the target, a reputed mob boss, escaped serious injury.

The mobsters are not just killing off one another in Israel; several have been murdered in Prague and Mexico.

"We got enough problems with local drug dealers killing each other every day in Philly," says the source. "We don't need international drug dealers setting up shop here."

"Right now, we're seeing pets vanishing from Mt. Airy to Reading," says an animal-abuse investigator. "The pets are used as bait dogs. Dog fighters need to train dogs how to kill, that's why they need other people's pets for practice."

This investigator, who has provided accurate information to the media and law enforcement in the past, says that thieves, known as "bunchers," steal pets from backyards and parks and sell them to fighters and medical-research laboratories.

"It's easy money," she says. "Stealing a dog is a crime that's rarely taken seriously by the police."

According to several sources familiar with dog fighting, there are at least three rings in Philadelphia and South Jersey. One is run out of a North Philly barbershop, two are headed by African-American criminals and a third by a Hispanic family from Camden.

Another source tells City Paper that it was a Philadelphia policeman who introduced him to dog fights [Cover, "Mortal Combat," Daryl S. Gale, May 25, 2000]. The policeman also bragged that he trains his own dogs and participates in illegal dog fights.

"We know the same people," the source says. "This cop tells me, 'My cousin gets down with that,' and puts me in touch with his cousin who runs pit bull fights here in the city and out in Reading."

The animal-abuse investigator says she also knows the name and cell-phone number of the policeman and claims she approached the department several times. "They just blew me off," she says. "They acted like they could care less."

The bettors and dog owners range from drug dealers flush with cash to neighborhood guys looking for a little illicit excitement, but the fights sometimes attract a higher-profile clientele.

According to a state law enforcement investigator, one very well-known professional athlete has bet large sums of cash on the outcome of these bloody battles that often leave the dogs seriously maimed or dead.

(b_mcgarvey@citypaper.net)