True Crime: Inside an L.A. FBI agent’s hunt for an Israeli sextortionist

The goal was a 29-year-old recluse who shared a two-bedroom condominium in Jerusalem along with his mom.

FBI agent Tanaz Korami had been chasing him down for months. If all went as deliberate, he would quickly be locked up in an Israeli jail.

When the wheels of her El Al flight hit the runway in Tel Aviv, the load of the second sunk in. The detective work had paid off. The FBI had unearthed extra proof than Israeli police would want to arrest the person, Elad Gaber.

Within the U.S., the place the FBI’s sufferer depend was nearing 150 youngsters, prosecution of Gaber remained a good distance off, she knew. However this was a vital step.

“That is it,” Korami informed herself.

Just a few days later, Korami stepped into Gaber’s bed room. It was simply as she had imagined it from her desk on the FBI’s workplace in West Covina: a “darkish dungeon” with the shutters closed on that sunny July day.

And there it was: A pc and piles of exhausting drives and disks.

“I keep in mind seeing these and considering, ‘Guys, ensure you bag and tag each piece of this,’” she mentioned.

El Al planes at Ben Gurion Airport close to Tel Aviv.

(Ariel Schalit / Related Press)

For greater than a yr, Gaber had been extorting webcam intercourse from women as younger as 12, practically all of them American.

Extensively identified now as sextortion, this cybercrime — in opposition to each women and boys — has change into way more prevalent in the previous couple of years. The investigation of Gaber would play a significant function in shaping how the FBI responds to it.

By the point the FBI came upon what he was doing in late 2010, Gaber’s strategies have been properly set.

He would begin by discovering blackmail materials: suggestive or nude photos. He typically acquired them by secretly recording group video chats amongst teenagers on Stickam, a Los Angeles livestreaming website that’s now defunct.

Gaber would then observe the woman down on Fb and impersonate a good-looking blond boy to befriend her. His display screen names included “Ethan Hunt,” “David Clint” and “Rach Hollis.”

He would inform the woman to hitch him in a dwell video chat, then play on her concern of humiliation: If she refused to “cam,” he would threaten to launch the compromising photos to family and friends members now seen to him on Fb.

The blackmail typically included screenshots to terrify the woman with a uncooked show of how mortifying the aftermath had been for an additional sufferer who refused to conform.

For Korami, one act of retaliation stood out from the others.

After a lady resisted his calls for, Gaber despatched sexually express photos of her to her associates. The harassment in school acquired so dangerous that her household bought their home and moved to a different city. “When she acquired to the brand new college,” Korami mentioned, “these youngsters acquired maintain of the fabric, and the bullying stored occurring.”

When Gaber’s coercion succeeded, he would give the woman step-by-step directions to supply dwell baby pornography. If she burst into tears, he stored going. He typically used the brand new materials to extort nonetheless extra.

A few of the women threatened to report Gaber to police. Go forward, he would taunt them. He lived midway around the globe and will by no means be caught.

One of many first to defy him was a highschool pupil in Lakewood, simply outdoors Lengthy Seashore. Her case would spark the FBI investigation.

The woman’s mother and father reported the extortion try and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division. Sheriff’s detectives despatched Google a search warrant to get the suspect’s e-mail. As soon as they learn it and realized he was writing from Israel, they handed the proof alongside to the FBI.

The case was assigned to Korami. Recognized to co-workers as Taz, she was then 27 years outdated.

She’d been recruited by the FBI a number of years earlier partially as a result of she speaks Farsi. Born in Iran, she grew up in San Diego, studied worldwide affairs at UC Irvine and was about to begin regulation college when she opted as an alternative to just accept the FBI’s provide — to the astonishment of her mom, an engineer, and father, an architect.

After an preliminary stint in counterterrorism, Korami requested to switch to crimes in opposition to youngsters. She was drawn by the readability of the mission.

“It was simply so black and white,” she mentioned. “You do your work, and also you make a distinction in someone’s life. I imply, you alter the kid’s life.”

Like a murder detective who inspects grisly crime scenes, Korami would attempt to keep indifferent from the anguish of the web assaults.

“I’ve discovered over time methods to form of compartmentalize it and go away the horrific photos form of packed away behind the mind to be able to transfer ahead and do the work to assist the victims,” Korami mentioned.

She began studying Gaber’s emails “to only form of get an concept of who this particular person is, what they have been doing, what’s the scope of the conduct.”

In minutes, she acknowledged the gravity of the case. Sextortion was changing into widespread, however the FBI had by no means seen a case with so many victims.

In a fortunate break, Gaber had used his important Gmail account to contact the Lakewood woman, so his id was identified from the beginning.

The e-mail additionally made clear that he had used Fb to focus on practically each sufferer, so Korami despatched search warrants to the social media big.

What Fb supplied in response laid naked the total sweep of Gaber’s extortions: He had used 92 aliases to focus on women in america.

“That basically is the place this case simply spilled huge open,” Korami mentioned.

Korami got down to establish victims, determine the place they lived and pay them visits. The emotional jolt — for each the ladies and their mother and father — was immense when an FBI group confirmed up on the doorstep.

“You at all times strategy it with a fragile contact,” Korami mentioned. Brokers know that many mother and father “usually are not going to have the very best reactions.”

Tanaz Korami, the FBI agent answerable for investigating Elad Gaber.

(Christina Home / Los Angeles Instances)

It was a race in opposition to time. Week by week, the variety of victims stored rising as Gaber discovered extra women to menace.

“We would have liked to cease this man from accessing a pc, as a result of daily that we waited, he was doing this to a different woman,” Korami mentioned.

Korami traveled with others on her group to Alabama, Arizona and Northern California. It shortly grew to become clear they might by no means end the interviews on their very own.

Korami turned to a half dozen ladies on the FBI’s “CAFI” group — baby and adolescent forensic interviewers. CAFIs, as they’re identified throughout the bureau, have grasp’s levels in psychology or social work. They’re stationed in FBI workplaces across the nation.

Brokers depend on their experience in taking statements from youngsters in a manner that ensures prosecutors can use them in courtroom. Children are normally taken to a room the place they will really feel comfy outdoors the presence of their mother and father to attenuate any concern they are going to get in hassle for what they reveal.

Some mother and father refused to permit their daughters to be interviewed. Others, overwhelmed with guilt, blamed themselves for not policing their youngsters’ internet use extra aggressively.

Nonetheless others failed to understand that their youngsters weren’t at fault.

In a latest interview with The Instances, a girl who was 12 when Gaber pressured her into sexual exercise on digital camera in 2010 recalled her mom “crying profusely” and getting mad at her when Korami and her group confirmed as much as ask questions.

Sextortion was not extensively understood on the time. This lady’s mom, like many others, was unaware that its affect on a toddler’s psychological well being can resemble the aftermath of a bodily rape.

“I wasn’t even a young person but, and it utterly ruined me,” the girl mentioned.

Some native police additionally have been unprepared for sextortion complaints.

Katie Connell, one of many CAFIs who interviewed Gaber’s victims, was disturbed to listen to from two women that they gave in to Gaber’s demand for webcam intercourse solely after police had rebuffed them and declined to analyze.

“That was heartbreaking,” mentioned Connell, now chief of the FBI’s baby sufferer providers unit.

To catch Gaber, Korami would want to steer Israeli police to arrest him. By the FBI’s authorized attache in Tel Aviv, she began supplying them with proof. The Israelis opened their very own investigation.

Worldwide cooperation in regulation enforcement may be painfully gradual. However after 9 months on Gaber’s path, Korami was relieved to listen to the Israelis have been able to raid his condominium in July 2011.

She flew to Tel Aviv with two others on the FBI’s group. Korami’s passport lists Iran — an enemy of Israel — as her birthplace, so a U.S. Embassy official met them on the airport to easy her manner via safety, a precaution that turned out to be unneeded.

In Jerusalem a number of days later, Korami waited in a automotive outdoors Gaber’s condominium constructing as Israeli police in bulletproof vests stormed in, arrested him and — along with his surprised mom wanting on — rummaged via his belongings.

A view of buildings in Jerusalem.

(Related Press)

As soon as the scene was safe, the police invited Korami in. Gaber was in handcuffs. He was calm, unsurprised. She was struck by how lengthy his hair was.

“It appeared like he hadn’t showered for days,” she mentioned. “His nails have been black. His eyes have been all crimson, bloodshot virtually like someone who’s stayed up all night time.”

Gaber’s routine was certainly to spend all night time on his pc and sleep throughout the day, his mom, biologist Hava Glickstein, informed police.

To Korami, that was a “fascinating piece of proof,” as a result of it corresponded to the time of day when he was blackmailing American youngsters.

Most essential, although, was the info seized from Gaber’s bed room — practically 5 terabytes. It was sufficient to crash the pc system then utilized by the FBI for forensic evaluation.

“I can confidently let you know that 98% of it certified as baby sexual exploitation materials,” Korami mentioned.

In all, she mentioned, Gaber ensnared about 200 victims unfold throughout practically all 50 states.

For every one, Gaber had meticulously organized folders, subfolders and recordsdata, a lot of them labeled “BM” for blackmail. It was laid out as effectively as a bookkeeper’s ledger. The woman’s title. The date he captured photos to threaten her. Her Fb associates checklist. The movies he extorted. The webcam chat transcripts.

Joey Blanch, the prosecutor who took the case to a federal grand jury in Los Angeles, spent hours matching movies of the ladies to corresponding webcam chats that Gaber had saved.

“We had all the chats, and all the instructions that he was giving these women throughout the blackmail video classes,” Blanch recalled.

The search of Gaber’s condominium additionally yielded video that he took of his neighbors having intercourse, enabling Israel to prosecute him on peeping-Tom expenses whereas it deferred to the FBI on the bigger sextortion case.

After serving 17 days in jail, in line with his attorneys, Gaber did six months of neighborhood service, washing aquarium tank home windows at a Jerusalem zoo.

One other three years glided by earlier than U.S. prosecutors have been able to cost Gaber. CAFIs have been nonetheless touring across the U.S. gathering sufferer statements and reams of Israeli information wanted to be translated from Hebrew.

“My workplace was stuffed with bins and bins of paperwork we couldn’t learn,” Blanch mentioned.

In August 2014, the grand jury indicted Gaber on 68 counts of extortion, manufacturing of kid pornography and associated crimes in opposition to 19 victims. They ranged from 12 to 17 years outdated.

The indictment included a searing account of Gaber’s retaliation in opposition to one of many 17-year-old women for refusing to do a dwell intercourse video.

In Fb messages from his pretend “Probability Lanbom” profile, he reminded her he already had a sexually express video of her. He threatened to publish it on the internet for “1000’s of individuals” to see alongside her title and telephone quantity. He referred to himself as “your blackmailer.”

“Can’t say I didn’t warn you and offer you time,” he chided her in a message with “get up” within the topic line.

Over the subsequent 10 days, the indictment alleged, Gaber despatched photos of the woman masturbating to her mom, father, sister and a few of her different Fb associates, telling them she was “exposing her physique to a random crowd.”

It took greater than 5 years after Gaber was indicted to get him to america. He contested the extradition, however was lastly flown to California in January 2020.

Six months later, he agreed to plead responsible to utilizing the web to induce the 2 12-year-old women and an unspecified variety of different victims to supply baby pornography.

He admitted disguising his id behind no less than 22 display screen names to hold out his extortions, in some circumstances following via with threats to break victims’ reputations by sending sexually express photos of them to their family and friends.

Korami was watching from the prosecution’s desk as Gaber shambled right into a downtown Los Angeles courtroom for sentencing final October. A saggy beige jail uniform and shackles draped off his gaunt body.

Precisely 11 years had handed since Korami opened the case.

“I simply wish to say I’m sorry,” Gaber, by then 39, informed U.S. District Decide Philip S. Gutierrez. “However I don’t wish to say — I can’t say something extra as a result of I really feel prefer it’s higher if I don’t. However I wish to say I’m sorry.”

Gaber’s legal professional, Mark J. Werksman, tried for leniency.

“Your honor, Mr. Gaber suffers a extreme psychological handicap,” he informed Gutierrez. Autism dysfunction “drove him out of society and turned him into mainly a hermit.”

Gaber had been “drummed out” of the Israeli navy after two weeks because of his poor psychological well being, he mentioned, and his autism “disadvantaged him of the power to grasp how a lot ache he inflicted on his victims.”

Werksman talked about a letter from Gaber’s mom who described her son as friendless and matted for years. “It’s exhausting to tell apart between proper and mistaken when you’re so remoted,” she wrote.

Three of Gaber’s victims traveled to Los Angeles for the sentencing. All three urged Gutierrez to impose the utmost penalty.

“He blackmailed me into performing unspeakable sexual acts to myself whereas he recorded me,” one mentioned. Gaber had made her really feel nugatory for years.

The girl who spoke with The Instances informed Gutierrez in graphic element what Gaber made her do on digital camera when she was 12. She referred to as it “torture.” It led to nervousness assaults, suicide makes an attempt and a decade of remedy that failed to alleviate her ache.

“That’s the unhappy factor about trauma,” she informed Gutierrez. “It by no means merely goes away.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. Catharine Richmond acknowledged Gaber’s autism, however mentioned, “his personal phrases let you know that he understood the affect this may have on the victims and selected to proceed ahead in any case.”

On a courtroom monitor, the prosecutor displayed considered one of Gaber’s warnings to a lady throughout a chat: “Your life will likely be ruined.”

Gutierrez matter-of-factly sentenced Gaber to 30 years in jail, the utmost penalty.

Korami was elated.

FBI agent Tanaz Korami, who co-workers name Taz.

(Christina Home / Los Angeles Instances)

“The harm he did to those ladies is unbelievable,” she mentioned. “You suppose again, these women have been simply at that formative age, the place you’re simply beginning to change into a girl and find out about your physique and relationships and issues like that, and he simply stole that from them.”

By the point Gaber was imprisoned, Korami had been promoted to supervisory particular agent. She labored within the FBI’s worldwide violent crimes unit, then switched to worldwide corruption.

She might have left the Gaber case behind and handed it off to a different agent.

In practically 4 hours of interviews, the one time Korami’s voice cracked was when she defined why she selected not to do this.

“I by no means handed it off to anyone else, as a result of this was the case that I needed to see via,” she mentioned. “I promised the victims that I’d get them justice, and …” She stopped for a second. “And I needed to see it via.”