(IsraelNN.com) Ali Al-Kurd, a money-changer in eastern Jerusalem, promised his investors a 26 percent annual profit. He disappeared several weeks ago, and 100 million shekels – some say 200 million – are gone.

The story, broken by Israel’s business weekly Globes, began seven years ago, according to some reports. Ali Al-Kurd, son of a wealthy businessman, began paying between 21 and 26 percent annual interest rates, in regular monthly payments, on investment sums that reached as high as $1.2 million. He held lavish meetings with potential investors, spoke vaguely of various opportunities in Israel and elsewhere, but “when you left the meeting with him, even though at first you thought you knew what he was saying, at the end you realized that you really have no idea what he planned to do with your money,” one broken investor said.

Lending money to receive interest is a grave sin, according to both Judaism and Islam. Among the investors who fell victim to the Arab eastern Jerusalem Ponzi scheme – violating religious law in the process – were leading Islamic figures in eastern Jerusalem, Hamas members, former Orient House officials, Fatah leaders, and top personnel in the Islamic organizations on the Temple Mount. 

Nearly 500 people are said to have lost money with Al-Kurd.  It is assumed that some 50 people lost between $400,000 and $1.2 million each, another 200 lost between $50,000 and $300,000, while many others lost smaller sums. It is assumed that many others who lost money do not want to come forward, as they do not want their interest-bearing activities to become known.

No Religious Way to Accept Interest
Although some investors explained their actions as merely “profit sharing” and not interest, Moslem religious leaders who spoke with Globes mocked this excuse. “There is no religiously acceptable way to give money to someone and to receive more in return,” they said. 

One loser who fell victim to Al-Kurd said that the fact that the interest returns deviated slightly each month lent an air of “precision and legitimacy to the business.  One month you would receive $705.10, and the next month it would be $730.50… No one seemed to want to find out where all this money was really coming from.”

A recent sermon at recent Friday prayers on the Temple Mount touched upon the issue, without mentioning it outright.  “Allah permitted you to buy and to sell, but he forbade interest,” the mufti declared. “We hear rumors, but we say: Don’t spread them further… so that you will not regret it.”

Al-Kurd in Hiding, Begging for Time
Al-Kurd, who had a villa in Beit Hanina in eastern Jerusalem’s northern area as well as a summer home in Jericho, is in hiding, in fear for his life. He has admitted to losing $25 million, and is begging his compatriots to ease off legal pressures and physical threats against him, and allow him to pay back at least 40% of his debts. His houses and other properties have already been commandeered; it is not clear whether his creditors will give him the time he needs.