HE doesn't look particularly menacing. A dapper, thin-faced gent, with a high forehead and slightly greying, Mr Gregory Lerner (46) has the air more of an intellectual than a mobster. But since he was arrested last month, it has been alleged that Mr Lerner has been involved in two murders, that he has defrauded banks in his native Russia of $85 million (£54.5 million), that he has set up a network of fraudulent companies across Europe - that he is, in short, one of the most fearsome figures in the so-called "Russian mafia".
In the last few days, allegations of his criminal activities have taken a particularly worrying turn for Israel's politicians. For Israeli police believe Mr Lerner attempted to bribe his way to a position of political influence in Israel, meeting with and offering donations to prominent cabinet ministers, members of Knesset and political activists.
The Lerner affair comes hard on the heels of another political scandal, which involved the short-lived appointment of Mr Ronnie Bar-On, a minor activist from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, to the key post of government attorney-general. Israel's Supreme Court is on Sunday to rule on several petitions that call for Mr Netanyahu to be prosecuted over that appointment; the Prime Minister's right-hand man, Mr Avigdor Lieberman, is still under police investigation for his role in the scandal. Embarrassingly for Mr Lieberman, police are now reported to be considering questioning him over the Lerner affair.
In contrast to the Bar-On case, however, it is not only government politicians who might be questioned over their links with Mr Lerner. The opposition Labour Party has had contacts with him as well one member solicited donations from him for Russian immigrants, and the party's secretary-general says he turned down an offer from Mr Lerner to arrange free election broadcasts via a Russian satellite TV station he claimed to own.
Police are stressing that politicians may have accepted donations from him in good faith, and may not have committed any crime in so doing. Mr Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet prisoner who is now Israel's Minister of Trade, is said to have accepted $100,000 from Mr Lerner, but this was before Mr Sharansky went into politics, and the money was apparently passed on to an immigrant absorption foundation.
Mr Lerner, who is said to have nurtured ambitions to run for political office himself, immigrated to Israel eight years ago at the start of a wave that has seen 800,000 Russians move here, and took the Hebrew name Zvi Ben-Ari. He has insisted through his lawyer that he is a legitimate businessman, and claims that documents purporting to link him to fraud and other crimes in Russia have been forged.