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The man who carried millions in a shopping bag By Yossi Melman Tags: Israel News, Arcadi Gaydamak An escaped criminal from France who worked as a money courier for business tycoon Arcadi Gaydamak is hiding in Israel, Haaretz has learned. Gaydamak and his former business partner, Angolan Pierre Falcone, are currently embroiled in the so-called "Angolagate" controversy, currently being tried in Paris. The escaped criminal has been named as 79-year-old Samuel Mandelsaft, who upon arriving in Israel in 2001 Hebraized his name to Shmuel Shaked. Mandelsaft fled France that year after a judge there opened an investigation into the Angolagate affair, a hugely publicized trial involving $790 million of arms sales to Angola during the country's civil war in the 1990s, and a colorful cast of characters including Jean-Christophe Mitterand, son of former French president Francois Mitterand. In August 2005, France issued an international arrest warrant for Mandelsaft and asked Israel to extradite him. Israel refused the request, citing that the allegations against him did not require Mandelsaft's extradition. The suspects linked to Angolagate - Gaydamak, Falcone, Mitterand, former French interior minister Charles Pasqua and a number of other prominent political figures - are suspected of taking bribes, breach of trust, fraud and illegal weapons trafficking with the African country. Advertisement Gaydamak, for whom France has also issued an international arrest warrant, did not appear in court for fear of being arrested, unlike the other suspects. A hearing held at the Paris court two weeks ago exposed Mandelsaft as a money courier for Brenco, a company owned by Gaydamak and Falcone. "He (Mandelsaft) was an elderly retired gentleman, tired, sick and unhealthy. He complained a lot," Isabelle Delubac, Falcone's former secretary, told the court two weeks ago. She said Mandelsaft would arrive at her boss's office with plastic bags full of money, earning him the nickname "Plastic Bertrand" after the Belgian pop singer of the 1980s. Delubac said she would remove the money from the bags at Falcone's instruction, and place it in envelopes to bribe Angolan officials and French public figures. Very few details are known about Mandelsaft, other than his birth in Poland in 1929. He worked in a variety of jobs before being employed by Falcone and Gaydamak, under whom he habitually exchanged French francs to dollars at an undisclosed location on Paris' Champs Elysees Boulevard, then deposited the dollars into a Swiss bank account under his own name. Israel Police declined comment on the matter, and the Justice Ministry said it does not, as a rule, comment on issues of extradition. Bookmark to del.icio.us   The King is dead Archeologists find new evidence for King Herod's tomb site. Al-Hasbara Israel launches Arabic YouTube channel to bypass Arab media.

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