The Israel Police arrested 16 suspects for allegedly extorting “protection” fees from contractors, money laundering and crimes estimated at a value of tens of millions of Shekels. The arrested included the head of a crime organization.
Police raided the homes and offices of the suspects and seized a lot of property worth millions of Shekels. This included 17 luxury vehicles, 14 real estate properties and hundreds of thousands of shekels in cash and deferred checks. In addition, 2 Glock type pistols were seized.
An investigation, said the police, revealed that the suspects extorted sponsorship fees from contractors through allegedly legitimate security companies that they own and forced the contractors to receive security services in projects that the contractors carry out in exchange for payment to those security companies, which are allegedly used as a platform for money laundering and obscuring the money trail of the criminal organization.
Israel has been engaged in a crackdown on the problem of extortion and the “protection rackets” in the country for some time now.
Image - Israel Police