Indicted Uzbek Jeweller - Update
Culture and History, UzbekistanNo Comment
Last July Rumil picked up on an item from the New York Post about Jacob “The Jeweller” Arabo, purveyor of “bling” to Hip-Hop royalty and other celebrities. The Manhattan-based jeweller (website here) is a Bukharan Jew whose family emigrated to the US in 1979, initially living in Brooklyn before moving to Queens. Last July Arabo was arrested, and later indicted, on charges of laundering money for a Detroit-based drugs cartel called the “Black Mafia Family”. Arabo’s lawyers are reportedly trying to get former clients of the jeweller, including Jay-Z, Diddy, and David Beckham, to testify on his behalf.
A longer and more detailed version of the story was published in Vanity Fair last November. What most interests me is that the date of the emigration of the Arabo family places them squarely in the time-frame for the refuseniks who left the USSR and settled (mostly) in either the USA or Israel. Alert readers will remember that the protaganist of Gary Shteyngart’s fine debut novel, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, is also from a refusenik family.
There’s the Queen’s connection too. Last year, the NYT conducted a culinary tour of “Regostan” (Rego Park), famed for its plethora of Central Asian restaurants. Similarly, Ted Levin’s superb exploration of Central Asian (mostly Uzbek) music, The Hundred Thousand Fools of God, ends up in Queens. There is I think a whole PhD to be written on the Bukharan Jewish diaspora in the USA. Anyone?
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