In the category of "you can't make this stuff up," we have the case of corruption in New Jersey which ranks right up there. The FBI have arrested 3 Mayors and numerous assemblymen, and a couple of rabbis (40 plus folks so far), on charges of money laundering and at least one case of selling a human organ on the black market.

Among the luminaries arrested are:

A New Jersey assemblyman and the mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus were among public officials arrested this morning by FBI agents in an international money laundering and corruption probe that includes rabbis in the Syrian Jewish communities of Deal and Brooklyn.

Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt (R-Ocean), Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell and Jersey City Council President Mariano Vega are among those already brought to the FBI building in Newark. Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini has also been arrested.

The NJ.com article has several video clips for those who are interested.

According to the article at Forbes, the roundup included five rabbis from NJ and NY and the FBI raided a synagogue in Deal, NJ:

In rounding up the defendants, FBI and IRS agents raided a synagogue Thursday morning in Deal, a wealthy oceanfront city of Mediterranean-style mansions, with a large population of Syrian Jews.

Those arrested include Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn, who was charged with conspiring to arrange the sale of an Israeli citizen's kidney for $160,000 for a transplant for the informant's fictitious uncle. Rosenbaum was quoted as saying he had been arranging the sale of kidneys for 10 years.

The politicians arrested were not accused of any involvement in the money laundering or the trafficking in human organs and counterfeit handbags.

Also rounded up were a number of government employees (inspectors and others) who participated in the corruption, but were not part of the money laundering activities.

The money laundering ring stretched from the U.S. to Switzerland and Israel, with charities and non-profits being used.

From the Wall Street Journal:

In 2007, for example, Eliahu Ben Haim, the principal rabbi of Congregation Ohel Yaacob, a synagogue in the shore community of Deal, accepted a $50,000 check from the cooperating witness, which was drawn from an account held by a fictitious company set up by the FBI "for the purpose of enabling [the cooperating witness] to launder money represented to be the proceeds of illegal activities," according to one criminal complaint. Mr. Ben Haim was named as a co-conspirator in court documents. The check was made payable to one of Mr. Ben Haim's charitable organisations "with the expectation that the proceeds would be returned to the [cooperating witness] at a later date, minus a ten percent fee to be retained by Co-conspirator Ben Haim."

Besides Mr. Ben Haim, the charged rabbis include Edmond Nahum, the principal rabbi of Deal Synagogue; Saul Kassin, a rabbi at Shaare Zion Congregation in the New York borough of Brooklyn; Mordchai Fish, a rabbi at a Brooklyn synagogue, Congregation Sheves Achim; and his brother, Lavel Schwartz, also a rabbi.

So we have a sordid tale of politicians, commissioners, government employees, and rabbis variously engaged in money laundering, selling counterfeit pursues, and trafficking in human organs. What is not clear at all is where that money was going and for what purpose.

Here is the link to the criminal complaint filed against current Mayor Cammarano and Utilities Commissioner Peter Schaffer