Papers from Des Moines to London were reporting that his New York–based firm, Payoneer—which offers prepaid cards, mostly as a way for employers to compensate foreign workers without checks and wire transfers—had been linked to this year’s cinematically brash Hamas assassination in Dubai. In the open view of security cameras, wearing vaudeville-level wigs and mustaches, a group of at least 27 agents plotted the death of the Palestinian militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was drugged and smothered with a pillow in his hotel room on Jan 19.
Dubai police said that the suspects used more than a dozen Payoneer debit cards for planes and hotels. Its chief declared he was “99 percent” certain that the assassins were from Mossad, Israel’s spy agency. Payoneer says it is cooperating with authorities.
The chronicle of the assassins has unfolded thrillingly, like something out of le Carré: One reportedly slipped into the United States the day after al-Mabhouh was found, another is said to have entered on Valentine’s Day. But the story of Payoneer and its founder, a warm man despite a Special Forces background, is even pulpier.