Not that the strange story of Yuval Tal needed to get any stranger, but the Post reported yesterday that the Israeli-American businessmen, whose prepaid debit cards were connected to this year’s assassination of a senior Hamas militant, has completely disappeared. “Employees of Yuval Tal’s Payoneer said he wasn’t at the company’s Midtown headquarters, and Brooklyn neighbors of Tal said he was out of the country,” that article explained. “At Payoneer’s office at 1841 Broadway, workers said Tal was ‘not in today’ and no one else could speak for the firm.”
But a spokesperson told The Observer today that the rumors of Mr. Tal’s disappearance are greatly exaggerated.
“Payoneer’s CEO Yuval Tal is presently on a business trip in Israel,” Mary Kae Marinac said in an email this afternoon. “Payoneer has an office in Tel Aviv and Yuval frequently travels between New York and Israel as a normal part of managing the company.”
A few minutes later, Mr. Tal sent a note, too. He didn’t comment for my story this week, and hadn’t responded to emails since Monday afternoon, when he said that he would truly try to speak but wouldn’t be able to meet. “As soon as it will be appropriate to chat,” he wrote today, “I’ll be happy to meet.”