The Israeli police made 27,000 tapes during the two years they eavesdropped on Gad Zeevi and Mikhail Chernoy cooking up their Bezeq (TASE: BZEQ ) deal.

That 27,000 tapes plus tens of thousands more from the preceding two years received the imprimatur of the Israeli court, based on secret information the police accumulated, which the police say tie Chernoy the billionaire to Russian organized crime.

The secret information, which came as it happens from police informers in Israel and elsewhere, indicate that the Russian businessman is involved in white-collar crime. Even murders, and, it now appears, in drug production too.

For more than two years Chernoy has been bitterly battling the charges. His lawyers have asked time and again for access to all the information the police claim to have, so their client can confront it once and for all. But most of the information in police and prosecution hands has remained concealed.

Thing is, during the last two years Chernoy has managed to gravely undermine the credibility of Israel's enforcement establishment, presenting them as hounding him for no cause. He even managed to get charges dropped about bribing an Elite councilman.

The prosecution took another blow when it was forced to admit that it had been wrong to claim the Russian authorities issued arrest warrants for Chernoy, on suspicions of murder. No such warrants had been issued, they confessed; the announcement had relied on a source who heard of it in the Russian press.

Thus the image of the prosecution and police gradually eroded while they pursued their case against the alleged mobster.

Now, before his trial begins, Chernoy's lawyers are again clamoring for access to the tapes made regarding their client. "The question of who Chernoy is will be key to the case," attorney Yakov Weinroth told judge Oded Mudrik yesterday. It is time, pled the lawyer, to hear the tapes, or as he put it - "open the black box and see what's inside."

The prosecution naturally objects. It claims that opening the black box could impair the police's pursuit of organized crime, as it could expose sources.