More than 800 police officers from the Central District carried out raids across
central Israel on Tuesday morning, arresting 103 suspects as part of a
large-scale operation against stolen property and drug gangs in the
district.
Code-named “Double Moon,” the operation is one of the biggest
single sweeps carried out by Israel Police in recent years.
Central
District YAMAR commander Yigal Ben- Shalom, who led the operation, said that the
raids were carried out after a 10-month undercover sting, in which two YAMAR
agents penetrated gangs in the Sharon and the Shfela regions.
Ben-Shalom
said the agents mainly focused on bringing down gangs who carried out burglaries
“because these are crimes that very much affect the day-to-day life of citizens
across the district.” He said that there wasn’t a recent wave of burglaries that
led to the decision to launch the undercover operation.
The suspects came
from four major burglary gangs, Ben-Shalom said, including 17 figures that the
YAMAR had previously identified as major players in the stolen property trade in
the district.
The 103 suspects also include 90 people arrested on drug
charges. The highest number of arrests was made in Taiba in the Sharon, where
some 34 suspects were taken into custody.
Altogether, suspects were
arrested for property crimes and drug offenses in Netanya, Rishon Lezion,
Rehovot, Kalansuwa and Taiba, as well as outside of the district in Ashdod,
Sderot, Beersheba, and Tel Aviv.