Scene 1: Scores of officers from Israel 's International Serious Crimes Unit (YAHBAL) sweep through Bank Hapoalim's Yarkon Street branch in Tel Aviv, resulting in headlines about global money laundering, the Russian Mafia and other nefarious charges.

Scene 2: Scant weeks later, back to reality. YAHBAL did what has become an all-too-familiar Keystone Cops about-face: no laundering charges against Russian oligarchs – just charges of technical violations against some bank clerks. But not before the obedient media screamed the intended message: Russian Jewish investors need not apply in Israel!

BBC News recently aired a story about how booming British companies actively compete for Russian investment capital. London rolls out the red carpet for the Russians, listeners learned. Israelis often ask me naively: Why would Russian Jews invest in London instead of Tel Aviv?

In the last 15 years, to its shame, YAHBAL is the only "company" that has been opened in Israel to deal with Russian Jews' investments. And YAHBAL's mission is to drive "Russian" money out of the country.

First the unit turned an obscure wheeler-dealer named Grigory Lerner into a "Russian Godfather," leading to a conviction for a white-collar crime. He spent six years in solitary confinement in a high-security prison. Why such harshness? Lerner's crime was a grave one, apparently. He attempted to open a bank, thus challenging the monopoly of Israel 's revered old boys' club.

Then the relentless YAHBAL started working on me. They deceived the court to obtain a wiretap order and kept me under surveillance for seven years. Thousands of hours of my conversations, cameras in every nook and cranny of my house, millions of shekels of taxpayer money spent on hunting Cherney. At the end of the day, all they had to show for it were two laughable charges.

One, a charge of bribery to get discounts for hotel rooms, was withdrawn – with a sigh of relief, no doubt – by the Attorney-General's Office the moment its chief, Edna Arbel,left office. The second, the so-called Bezeq affair, is clear-cut abuse of justice and will collapse in court.

On a different level, YAHBAL has grounds to consider the investigation a success. My business deals in Israel , a country I deeply love, would have created thousands of jobs. It all fell through as dozens of other Jewish businessmen from the former Soviet Union watched on the sidelines and concluded that their money was safer in Europe and the US than with an Israeli economy that so clearly wanted nothing to do with them.

I DO NOT have an account at Bank Hapoalim's Yarkon branch, nor do I have any friends among the accused. Yet I cannot remain silent. This case is illegal and idiotic; it is a frame-up that once again damaged the entire country. According to some estimates, it cost the Israeli economy $7 billion in actual capital transfers to friendlier environments outside Israel.

As long as Israeli banks are subject to the agenda of politically motivated police, rather than that of financiers and managers, foreign money will keep hemorrhaging from the country.

Following the Hapoalim raid, a YAHBAL representative had the hutzpa to admit on TV: "We don't want them here, and we don't want their money!"

We? Was he talking about the Israeli unemployed, who would benefit from dozens of new businesses? Did he mean Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has stated that Israel wants our investments?

The police find allies amongst unwitting journalists who have never bothered to pose a simple question: If that particular bank branch had hundreds of VIP investors, why were only Russian names leaked to the media – long before any formal charges were brought?

Billions in potential Russian Jewish investment capital have not materialized thanks to YAHBAL's vendetta. Good Russian Jews with warm hearts and Zionist motivations have been scared off. The general public is also beginning to get a whiff of these unacceptable manipulations.

Since the government ignores them, the inexcusable conclusion is that this approach of vilification and persecution is implicitly sanctioned by the country's power elites.

Why? There can be only one explanation: We are perceived as a threat. The elite is afraid that we will grab a piece of "their" pie, be it in business or in government; that the highly educated and motivated Russian community has the ability to push aside many mediocre bureaucrats who have brought this country to crisis.

YAHBAL's antics are a typical example of the Eastern European shtetl mentality that has dominated much of Israeli culture, despite many other Western values and approaches that also seek to sink roots.

By investing in Israel 's energy sector, infrastructure and hi-tech, prominent Jewish businessmen from the former USSR could make a formidable contribution to Israel 's economy, security and society. It's still not too late; but the government must first realize the error of its ways and openly embrace Russian Jewish investments here.

If it does not, Israel will remain a mom-and-pop shop owned by a powerful few. And analysts will keep wondering why it is that rich Jews prefer to invest elsewhere rather than in the land of their forefathers.

The writer, an international industrialist living in Israel since 1994, is president of The Michael Cherney Foundation, which assists victims of terror attacks and Russian newcomers with acute social needs in Israel.