Dror Alperon, son of murdered mob boss Yaakov Alperon, arrested in double murder case

Alperon and cousins Eli and Reuben Partush are suspected of involvement in double homicide in Petah Tikva in June.

By BEN HARTMAN
Dror and Omer Alperon in court 370 (photo credit: Ben Hartman)
Dror and Omer Alperon in court 370
(photo credit: Ben Hartman)
Dror Alperon, son of murdered crime boss Yaakov Alperon, was arrested Wednesday morning along with two other men on suspicion of being involved in a double murder that took place in Petah Tikva in June.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Kfar Saba Magistrate’s Court extended by six days the remand of Alperon and his cousins, brothers Eli and Reuben Partush.
In the incident in June, a gunman stepped off a motorcycle and gunned down Eli Orkabi, 35, and Eran Fartush, 42, in broad daylight on a quiet residential street next to a high school and a kindergarten.
While Orkabi had a criminal record and served three years for manslaughter in the 2000 killing of a man on the Hilton Promenade in Tel Aviv, Fartush had no criminal record. It is believed that he was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Alperon and the Partush brothers were arrested just a few days after Chaya Alperon, the brothers’ mother, was herself arrested in connection with the killings.
Police suspect that Orkabi was targeted to avenge a beating that Reuben Partush had suffered at the hands of Eli Reuben, an Orkabi associate.
Together with several accomplices, Reuben, who reportedly ran a “gray market” bank in Petah Tivka, badly beat Partush over an unpaid debt.
Soon after, he was shot and wounded by unknown assailants.
According to police, the killing of Orkabi had been planned as a further attempt to avenge the beating.
The apartment building where the double murder took place is well known to Central District police. Several of the units were purchased by mobsters, including Orkabi, crime family head Avi Ruhan and his associate, Chico Ben-Adeh.
On Wednesday, Ben-Adeh was arrested on weapons charges along with two other associates from the Ruhan crime family. The arrests came after Petah Tikva police caught a local teen trying to remove a firearm from the yard outside a local home.