Weed kingpin to be released from prison to serve out time in house arrest
Amos Dov Silver founded Telegrass online network, connecting 3,000 drug dealers to more than 200,000 clients; prosecution elects not to appeal decision
Amos Dov Silver, the founder of a massive virtual marijuana marketplace imprisoned in 2019, will be released Thursday after more than three years behind bars.
The Central District Court agreed to release Silver on condition he remain in house detention with a tracking bracelet.
Although the court provided prosecutors with a 48-hour stay of release as they assessed their legal options, the prosecution decided Wednesday night not to proceed with an appeal, paving the way for Silver’s release Thursday.
Silver’s legal representatives said they were happy with the news, though they added that “his release should have been much sooner.”
The prosecution has labeled Silver “the head of a crime organization,” and warned that allowing home detention was a risk “in light of the fact that he fled from the airport in Ukraine prior to his deportation to Israel.”
After his arrest in Uman, Ukraine, in August 2019, Silver was taken to an airport in Kyiv to be flown to Israel, but he managed to slip away from his guards and escape.
Following a day-long manhunt, Israeli and Ukrainian police announced they had recaptured Silver and the extradition went ahead.
According to reports at the time, Silver was planning to flee to the US and intended to spend two days in Uman before crossing into Moldova.
Silver’s legal team at the time of his arrest accused Ukraine’s SBU security service of physically beating the suspect.
In addition to drug trafficking, Silver was also charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, possession of drugs other than for personal consumption, obstruction of justice, money laundering and tax evasion.
The State Prosecutor’s Office estimated that hundreds of millions of shekels were circulated through Silver’s Telegrass online network over two years, with the platform’s administrators mediating between more than 3,000 drug sellers and some 200,000 buyers, and pocketing roughly NIS 30 million ($8.48 million) in the process.
In the years before his arrest, Silver was an activist for cannabis legalization, including organizing The Big Bong Night in 2014 — an audacious cannabis legalization protest in front of the Knesset in Jerusalem.
Israel has taken steps in recent years to make medical cannabis available and is poised to become a major exporter of the crop. Recreational use of the drug remains illegal, though the Public Security Ministry partially decriminalized it in 2017, setting fines and treatment for initial offenders instead of criminal procedures.
Agencies contributed to this report.
