Former Pardes Katz gang head indicted for extortion

TA District Attorney’s Office files indictment against 5 men, including former underworld boss Yitzhak “Heshy” Hadif.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
arrest 311 R (photo credit: REUTERS/Eric Gaillard )
arrest 311 R
(photo credit: REUTERS/Eric Gaillard )
The Tel Aviv District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment on Tuesday against five men, including former underworld boss Yitzhak “Heshy” Hadif, charging them with extortion.
The 42-year-old, formerly known as the “head of the Pardes Katz gang,” was indicted alongside his nephew Yosef Hadif, 22, his brother Shalom Hadif, 48, Shai Harari, 21, and Yitzhak Saliman, 25.
The five men allegedly took advantage of a financial dispute to which they were not a party to blackmail the complainant, Eliyahu Akva, using threats and force to compel him to pay the money he owed.
The extortion began, the indictment says, when the man to whom Akva owed money filed a police complaint against him for fraud and even turned to consumer affairs TV show Kolbotek for help. When Kolbotek broadcast an episode about the matter, the five defendants allegedly decided to blackmail Akva, threatening him to force him to give them money to pay off his debt.
The defendants received about NIS 7,000 from Akva, the indictment alleges, but did not give any of that money to his creditor.
According to the indictment, Yosef Hadif called Akva in late December and threatened to harm him or his property if he did not pay the money. Scared, Akva promised to pay them NIS 500 per month, but the defendants demanded NIS 10,000 a month, the indictment says.
The extortion culminated in Hadif and two others threatening to harm the complainant, if he did not give them his car, the indictment says.
Police uncovered the extortion plot earlier this month, when they arrested three of the five defendants – Yosef, Harari and Saliman – in Bnei Brak after an incident in which they blocked the complainant’s car with their own, and chased him with a baseball bat, the indictment alleges.
Alongside the indictment, the district attorney filed a request to the court asking that the five men be remanded in custody throughout the legal proceedings against them.