With Raphael Ahren, Haaretz
South African rugby legend now resident in Israel Wilf Rosenberg this week fiercely denied a damning front-page report in SA’s top investigative magazine Noseweek, which describes him as a "crucial cog in the illegal diamond racket, and long-time member of the Israeli Mafia."
"It's a pack of lies, everything that's written there is hogwash," Rosenberg, who was born in Cape Town and made Aliyah last December, told Israeli media: "The accusations there are absolutely mind-boggling... The only true part in the whole thing is my name."
The report, published in the June edition of Noseweek, has created a stir among South African Jewish circles, many of whom reacted with shock and disbelief about the popular figure's alleged criminal double life.
"To many, Wilf Rosenberg is one of the greatest rugby players of all time," the article on the magazine's Internet home page starts. "The Springbok star of the 1950s is tucked away in an Israeli retirement home where he's busy penning an autobiography that will lay bare his unknown, secret life - as a crook and conman extraordinaire."
Involvement with underworld figures
The report goes on to describe how Rosenberg, who turns 76 this month, allegedly writes about his involvement with underworld figures from both South Africa and Israel, facilitating bribes and engaging in other criminal acts.
Noseweek, whose cover shows a caricature of Rosenberg shoving a policeman, asserts it based the article on various sources: anonymous law enforcement and "underworld" figures, his ex-wife Shelly Rosenberg (nee Liebowitz ) and a preview for an autobiography allegedly penned by Rosenberg, which Shelly Rosenberg says she found in his old apartment after she discovered he had moved to Israel.
"Crime-fighting sources unofficially confirm Wilf Rosenberg's secret life as a member of the Israeli Mafia, describing him as 'a very discreet operator, mostly involved in the diamond side,'" the report states. The sources then describe in some detail how Rosenberg - who was "in the inner circle with the big players of the Israeli Mafia" - worked with international crime bosses to "legalise conflict diamonds." The sources say, "He was the expert" for getting rough diamonds cut.
Had connections in major banks
Shelly Rosenberg, Wilf's second wife who reportedly received divorce papers from him last October, says in the article, "Wilfred was part of The Syndicate, the Israeli Mafia" and "had connections in major banks and insurance companies."
According to the article, she went through his files in his abandoned cottage in December and "found that he was a blooming crook." Married in 1989 after his first wife died, Shelly Rosenberg is quoted in the article as saying Wilf "abandoned" her eight years ago.
The least incriminating quotes in the article come from Rosenberg himself, which the magazine says are found on "26 A4 pages in the legend's neat handwriting." In the manuscript, Rosenberg allegedly writes that his life "encompassing rugby, dental medicine, boxing promotion and sports journalism" led him "to socialise and do business with the elite of these worlds, including the not-so-elite of the huge underground South African sporting (and otherwise) mafia."
Passed bribes at every level
According to the article, "In 1976 he became a boxing promoter with Square Ring Golden Gloves, describing his role as 'the bagman', passing bribes 'at every level, including to the government.'" The paper also quotes Rosenberg as writing that his book will expose "how bribery and corruption is an integral part of the worlds of sport, gambling, commerce, finance and politics" and that "crime certainly pays."
Speaking to Anglo File by phone from his room in the Beit Protea retirement home in Herzliya, Rosenberg blamed his ex-wife for fabricating the story. "All of a sudden she tried to attack me because I've gone to Israel and I didn't tell her anything about it. But I wasn't speaking to her in South Africa [either]. I divorced her and that was it."
Shelly Rosenberg could not be reached for comment. Her daughter, Alison Weitzman, of Be'er Sheva, declined to comment on details of the story but said she was certain her mother did not write the passages herself. She also asserted Noseweek approached her mother with the manuscript and not vice versa.
He knew zilch about diamonds, says sister
"The flying dentist," as Rosenberg was known during his active career, says his lawyer advised him not to sue Noseweek. Yet he criticised the magazine as "gutter press" for not speaking to him before publishing the story. Noseweek editor Martin Welz told Anglo File the mag "made several attempts to contact" the family, which were left unanswered.
Rosenberg's daughter, Nicola Kroft, said she only received one e-mail from the magazine, three days before the story's publication. "I don't check my e-mails every day - by the time I saw it the story was already out there," the Modi'in physician told Anglo File.
While Kroft and her husband Alan flatly rejected the report's allegations, they say the passages from the purported book proposal are likely authentic. Rosenberg probably wrote them about 10 years ago with the intention of describing his views on the corruption in South African sports, Alan Kroft said.
According to Rosenberg's sister, Vivienne Kramer, he indeed attempted once to author an autobiography. "Shelly obviously got access to Wilf's writings, which are not accurate but obviously fictionalised," she wrote in an e-mail, which Anglo File obtained.
Besides denying several other claims made in the article, Kramer asserts her brother was "never involved with any Israeli mafia and knows zilch about diamonds." He "certainly" believed he knew "who was who in that cartel but to my knowledge he had no dealings with them."
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