To understand the alleged multi-million-dollar extortion plot, the campaign of misinformation, and the web of legal battles surrounding Jason Shurka, one must first look beyond the charismatic spiritual guide and examine the world he comes from. His actions, though seemingly rooted in the modern digital landscape of alternative wellness, are not a recent invention. Instead, they appear to be the culmination of a multi-decade family playbook—a sophisticated and battle-tested strategy of legal and financial maneuvering designed to shield assets, evade accountability, and maintain control at all costs. This operational philosophy, honed over years of high-stakes litigation and complex business dealings, provided the foundational blueprint for the very tactics Jason Shurka would later deploy against his partners at Energy Enhancement System (EESystem). The story of Jason Shurka, therefore, does not begin with a spiritual awakening, but with an apprenticeship in a family empire built on the principles of obfuscation and control.
At the heart of the Shurka family's influence is a powerful and previously undisclosed connection between their New York-based real estate conglomerate, Signature Investment Group (SIG), and one of Israel's most critical infrastructure firms. SIG is the owner of Gadish Engineering and Management Group, Israel's second-largest project management company.1 This ownership structure places a vital instrument of Israeli state policy under the control of a private family network operating out of the United States. The synergy is personified by Efe "Effi" Shurka, who serves as both the Chairman of the Board for Gadish Group and the CEO of SIG, creating a unified and centralized command structure across international borders.1
Gadish is not a typical construction firm; it is deeply embedded within the Israeli state and its national security apparatus. The company manages a portfolio of over 200 projects annually with a turnover exceeding 3 billion NIS, including some of the nation's most ambitious and politically sensitive undertakings.1 As a key partner in the METAV consortium, Gadish co-manages the Tel Aviv Metro project, a 150 billion NIS endeavor described as the largest infrastructure project in Israel's history.1 Its deep state integration is further evidenced by the composition of its board of directors, which reads less like a corporate roster and more like a council of military strategists. Board members include high-ranking retired Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) officers such as Brigadier General (Reserve) Avigdor Kahalani, a decorated war hero and former Minister of Public Security, and Brigadier General (Reserve) Haim Barak.1 The company's CEO, Moshe Benjo, is a retired IDF Colonel with extensive experience managing military construction projects.1
This revolving door between the military and corporate leadership is not merely symbolic. It provides Gadish with unparalleled political capital and an intimate understanding of government procurement, particularly for projects involving the Ministry of Defense, a key client.1 However, this integration also places Gadish at the center of some of Israel's most controversial international policies. The company's project portfolio includes direct involvement in building the physical infrastructure of the Israeli occupation in Palestinian territories. Gadish managed the construction of a bridge for the Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR), a system explicitly designed to connect illegal Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem with the western part of the city, a project condemned by international observers for expropriating Palestinian land.1 Furthermore, the company is directly involved in housing construction in the Beitar Illit settlement in the occupied West Bank and the development of a railway in the Naqab (Negev) desert that human rights groups argue is designed to facilitate the forced displacement of tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens.3
The foreign ownership of a critical national security contractor like Gadish represents a significant anomaly in a country where security is paramount. Allowing a US-based family firm—one with its own history of extensive environmental and business litigation in New York—to control a primary manager of defense and state infrastructure suggests a level of trust that transcends standard corporate governance.1 This "special relationship" effectively creates a powerful and opaque financial pipeline, where profits generated from Israeli state-funded projects, including those in occupied territories, flow directly to a private family network in New York. This deep entrenchment with state power, operating in a sphere where conventional oversight is limited, appears to have cultivated a unique operational mindset within the Shurka family—one characterized by a sense of impunity and a belief that they operate "above the rules." It is this very mindset that would later become a defining feature of Jason Shurka's business dealings.
The foundational document codifying the Shurka family's operational playbook is a secret "management agreement" dated January 18, 2002.1 This agreement was not merely a legal document but a masterclass in strategic obfuscation, designed to create a legal fiction of divestment while ensuring that true control and benefit of the family's assets never changed hands. Its brilliance and audacity were fully revealed in 2008, during the contentious divorce proceedings between Efraim Shurka (Jason's uncle) and his wife of 30 years, Jane Shurka.
Faced with the equitable distribution of a substantial marital estate, Efraim Shurka made a stunning declaration in court: he owned nothing. He claimed that all family assets, from real estate holdings to business interests, had been transferred years prior to their children—including a then-minor Jason Shurka—and their cousins.1 The vehicle for this alleged transfer was the 2002 agreement, a document that neither his wife nor his children had seen until it was produced as evidence in the divorce.5
A forensic analysis of the agreement reveals its true purpose. While it did transfer legal title of the properties to the children, it simultaneously granted Efraim and his siblings the status of "irrevocably appointed as managers for life".1 This position came with "complete control" and "full and unfettered discretion" over every aspect of the assets. The parents, according to the agreement's own text, retained "all rights of ownership... in the same manner as if they were the absolute owner(s) thereof".1 To complete the legal fiction, the children, now the nominal owners on paper, were simultaneously saddled with millions of dollars in promissory notes owed back to their parents.4
The arrangement was so transparently a sham that the Shurka children took the extraordinary step of suing their own father to have the agreement invalidated. They argued in court that they had never truly owned the assets held in their names and that the transfers were orchestrated to "hinder, delay, or defraud" their mother's rightful claims in the divorce.1 In a 2011 ruling, the court acknowledged a clear "issue of fact" as to Efraim's fraudulent intent, refusing to dismiss the children's challenge.5
This same asset-shielding structure was battle-tested again, this time against a formidable corporate adversary. The family's petroleum distribution company, PDI, was explicitly governed by the 2002 agreement, with Jason Shurka and his cousins listed as the official shareholders while their parents, including Manny Shurka, remained in control.4 In 2013, the oil giant Lukoil won a default judgment of nearly $1.4 million against PDI for unpaid fuel bills. When Lukoil attempted to collect, it found PDI to be an empty shell.1 Suspecting fraudulent conveyance, Lukoil filed a new lawsuit against 45 defendants, including the entire Shurka family and their web of LLCs, arguing that the corporate veil should be pierced.4 Despite evidence of questionable inter-company loans and salary payments, the Shurkas successfully defended the structure, arguing it predated their relationship with Lukoil and was not created specifically to defraud them. In 2016, the court dismissed Lukoil's case, leaving the family's legal veil intact.4
The 2002 agreement was, therefore, not a one-off legal trick but the codification of the family's core philosophy. It established a repeatable and effective playbook: use trusted insiders—even minor children—as legal placeholders to create a formidable barrier against outside claims, all while a hidden agreement ensures that true power never changes hands. This strategy of separating ownership from control became the blueprint for future dealings, a lesson Jason Shurka appears to have learned well.
Jason Shurka is not an outsider to these practices; he is a direct product of them. His entire understanding of business, finance, and law was forged in the crucible of his family's legal wars and complex corporate strategies. From a very young age, he had a "front-row seat" to a system predicated on legal obfuscation and asset shielding, an experience that appears to have profoundly shaped his own operational methods.
His immersion began in childhood. As a minor, he was named as a beneficiary and a "minor nominal defendant" in the legal battles surrounding the 2002 management agreement, making him a legal pawn in the family's financial chess game before he was old enough to understand the rules.1 This early exposure was followed by a formal apprenticeship in the family empire. From 2015 to 2018, while still in his late teens and early twenties, Jason served as a Vice President at Signature Investment Group (SIG), the family's flagship real estate firm.2 This role would have given him direct insight into the management of SIG's vast portfolio and the intricate web of LLCs used to compartmentalize it, many of which were registered at family residences like 10 Hoffstot Lane in Port Washington and 30 Martin Court in Great Neck, blurring the lines between personal and corporate assets.1
Having been thoroughly groomed in the family playbook, Jason Shurka pivoted to create his own ventures under the "UNIFYD" brand, but the underlying structure bore the family's hallmarks. He established UNIFYD World, Inc., UNIFYD TV, and UNIFYD Healing, each a separate entity that allowed for compartmentalized operations and legal distance.1 This strategy of corporate layering is a direct echo of the SIG model. More tellingly, his alleged attempt to structure the $15 million payment from EESystem as a "donation" to his private, undeclared entity, "The Light System," is a direct application of the 2002 agreement's core principle: creating a pseudo-legal construct to move money outside of conventional, taxable, and accountable channels. Jason Shurka's actions are not an aberration; they are the learned and proven methods of his family, adapted for a new marketplace.
Table 1: The Shurka Family Corporate Web