Just a few weeks after surrendering to authorities in Canada, a millionaire philanthropist who admitted to money laundering was shipped back to the United States on Wednesday.
Nathan Jacobson, a prominent businessman in Canada and Israel, was led through Pearson International Airport in handcuffs on Wednesday before being put on a flight to San Diego, Calif., where he is expected to be sentenced to several years in prison for his role in an online pharmacy that sold drugs to people without proper prescriptions.
In 2006, Jacobson was one of a dozen people named in a U.S. federal indictment for the scheme, which netted more than $120 million.
In 2008, Jacobson pleaded guilty to laundering $46 million through his Tel Aviv company for payments linked to Affpower, his online pharmacy.
The plea was sealed after he agreed to help investigators. But when it came time for his sentencing in July 2012, Jacobson was nowhere to be found. The details of his plea then became public.
U.S. District Judge Irma Gonzalez issued a warrant for his arrest, and authorities believed he was hiding in Canada.
Jacobson was arrested by the Toronto Police Fugitive Squad at his Toronto condominium, not long after a photo of him posing with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at an Ottawa reception started circulating online.
Staff at the Prime Minister’s Office said Harper knew nothing of the charges against Jacobson at the time the photo was taken.
Jacobson has long boasted of having friends in high places, and has taken credit for introducing then-Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to Netanyahu. He also boasted to an Israeli journalist in 2009 of having close connections to Harper.
“He said, ‘I have a great relationship with Stephen Harper,’” Amir Kurz told CTV News, adding that Jacobson told him that he “creates relationships between Israel and Canada.”
Between 2004 and 2011, Jacobson also reportedly gave about $10,000 to the Conservative Party. The party did not respond to a question from CTV asking if it would rescind the donation.
When asked by CTV News Wednesday whether his deportation will affect his place in Canadian high society, Jacobson replied: “I think everything will be fine.”
With a report from CTV Toronto's Tamara Cherry and CTV’s Daniele Hamamdjian in Ottawa
