Ra'anana policeman held for allegedly tipping off mobsters

For the second time in two weeks, a member of the Israel Police has been arrested on suspicion of aiding members of an organized crime syndicate.

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
corruption 88 (photo credit: )
corruption 88
(photo credit: )
For the second time in two weeks, a member of the Israel Police has been arrested on suspicion of aiding members of an organized crime syndicate. The Justice Department's Police Investigative Division revealed Wednesday that a day earlier, a police patrolman was arrested following a months-long investigation. Police reportedly became suspicious after a raid on a local illegal casino proved useless when they found that the gambling establishment was completely empty. Police reported the matter to the PID, which began the undercover investigation that was brought to a close Tuesday following the arrest of the policeman, who works at the Ra'anana substation, a branch of the Kfar Saba station. PID investigators believe that the policeman has been cooperating with a Sharon-area crime family for months, if not years. He allegedly received tens of thousands of shekels for each tip-off that he gave to the crime syndicate. The policeman was questioned for hours under warning, and was later taken to court, where he was ordered to five days of house arrest. In addition, the policeman was forbidden from contacting his fellow police officers at the Ra'anana and Kfar Saba stations. Only last week, an officer in the Israel Police's Immigration Authority was arrested under suspicion of aiding an Israeli Arab crime family, including carrying out extortion and jointly running a brothel with a known criminal, already in jail for other crimes. With the publication of the Zeiler Report in February, committee head Tel Aviv District Court Judge (ret.) Vardi Zeiler warned that crime syndicates had worked to ensure that people on their payroll were "placed at critical junctions" in the police force in order to advance the gangsters' interests.