Vaknin’s military service in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is another enigma. His military dossier shows that in 1979 he served as a private first class in Golani , an infantry unit. He was a witness for the prosecution in a war crimes trial after he documented atrocities committed by his Golani superiors and soldiers in the West Bank town of Halhul. But then he went to study computer programming and to be a parachuted medic. After that, he became a kitchen hand (!) in Bik’at Ha’yareakh (“ Moon Valley ”), Israel’s remotest air base not far from Eilat, the Red Sea resort. Three months among pots and pans and he is in the Air Force in Sde Dov (AFB 15) in the center of Tel-Aviv. There, he teaches physics and mathematics to air force pilots and mechanics. He also manages the Air Force library in the base. Yet, our research discovered that Vaknin was secretly working with all the intelligence arms of the IDF. He was nominally under the command of Brigadier General Zusia Knia...
Vaknin constantly appears in countries where there is a crisis. After he appears, there is always some big change in the politics of those countries. In 1990, Sam Vaknin was arrested and interrogated several times by the new securities fraud squad of the Israeli police. He was suspected of (and, in 1995, convicted of) securities fraud in a strange affair involving the purchase of a state-owned bank, Agriculture Bank. His brokerage house, Mikbats Tesuah, was closed and he paid millions to banks, the tax authorities, and individuals he owed money to, including some very dangerous crime personalities. He went to live with his new wife, Nomi, who was just out of the Israeli army, in Ramat-Gan, not far from the Diamond Exchange and the Elite chocolate factory (Lean st. 24). Yet, in 1991, Vaknin was back. By 1994, he had enough money to buy big part of the state-owned IT company (Malmata”m) and a HVAC factory, Omega as well as temp agency employing 8000 people. In 199...