Regev, Goldwasser returned in coffins in 2008
Photo: Channel 2
Hezbollah chief Nasrallah
Photo: AFP
3 Hezbollah leaders lose big to 'Lebanese Madoff'
Wafik Safa, who refused to reveal status of Regev and Goldwasser, is one of biggest losers in scheme
Three senior Hezbollah operatives are among those who invested and lost funds with Lebanese businessman Salah Ezzadine, who has been nicknamed the 'Lebanese Madoff' after being accused of losing over a billion dollars of his clients' money.
One of the three is Wafik Safa, the first to disclose during Israel's prisoner swap with Hezbollah in 2008 that IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, kidnapped by the organization two years earlier, were dead.
Original Report
Associated Press
Famous Shiite financier suspected of executing Ponzi scheme in which main loser was Hezbollah
During the prisoner swap Wafik Safa became known in Israel for refusing to reveal the status of the two captured soldiers until the very last minute, just before their bodies were brought out in coffins.
Al-Arabiya reported that the other two men were the leader of Hezbollah's parliament bloc, Mohammad Raad, and a member of the bloc, Amin Sherri. The report did not say whether they had lost their own private funds or those of the organization.
Sources affiliated with Hezbollah have estimated Ezzadine's losses at around a billion dollars, and a Kuwaiti daily reported Thursday that the organization had lost around $683 million.
Hezbollah, said to be still recovering from the 2006 Second Lebanon War with Israel, is now considered to be in financial dire straits.
Earlier this week the Lebanese a-Safir reported that Ezzadine, a prominent Lebanese businessman, is accused of leading a giant Ponzi scheme and that he was arrested by Hezbollah in Beirut while attempting to flee the country.
