The National Police Fraud Investigation Unit at Lahav 433 opened an open investigation following a period of a year and a half during which intensive covert activity took place.

In the morning of Sunday 15 Kislev, ten suspects were detained for questioning ‘under caution’ and seven others were detained on suspicion of involvement in bribery, fraud and breach of trust, receiving fraudulently under aggravated circumstances, money laundering offenses under the Income Tax Ordinance and offenses under the VAT Law. Being questioned ‘under warning’ usually signals there is sufficient evidence to move ahead with a criminal indictment.

This is an investigation conducted by the Israel Police, jointly with the Tax Authority, with the assistance of the Prohibition of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Authority and accompanied by the State Attorney’s Office, taxation and economics, and focuses on the phenomenon of public corruption.

For a year and a half, the Israel Police has been conducting a covert investigation, which began following the monitoring of criminal activity among those involved in serious crime, who were identified as entering the vacuum created after deep-seated assassinations in Israel’s largest crime organizations.

In the course of the covert investigation, alleged cooperation between these serious criminal elements was exposed, as well as senior officials in various local authorities, as well as on the national level.

Upon the arrest of the suspects, searches were carried out in their homes and offices. The suspects were brought for questioning by the police, and in the afternoon, they will be brought as far as necessary from an investigative standpoint to a hearing at the Rishon L’Tzion Magistrate’s Court, asking them to extend their detention.

Police report the probe continues.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)