Police: Organized crime figures placed grenade outside Beitar owners house as extortion attempt

October incident came after Tabib did not pay extortionists linked to well known crime organization in central Israel, police reveal.

By BEN HARTMAN
ELI TABIB 370 (photo credit: Adi Avishai)
ELI TABIB 370
(photo credit: Adi Avishai)
Organized crime figures placed a grenade outside Beitar Jerusalem FC owner Eli Tabib’s house in October, as part of an effort to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from him, police reported on Monday.
Superintendent Rona Morad-Fingelay of the Yarkon sub-district told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that the fragmentation grenade that had been stuck to the front gate of Tabib’s house in Kfar Shmaryahu was supposed to explode when he opened the gate, and only a technical malfunction prevented an explosion.
She said that police are not able to disclose which criminals placed the grenade because the investigation is ongoing, but that they are members of a very well known organization in central Israel.
Morad-Fingelay, who also led the investigation of the repeated bombings of the Tiv Taam on Ibn Gvirol in Tel Aviv earlier this year, said that Tabib did not pay the extortionists, who started to demand money not long after he became the owner of Beitar.
Shortly after the grenade was discovered, there was speculation that it was possibly connected to football, with some thinking it could be connected to supporters of Hapoel Tel Aviv FC, the Beitar rival that Tabib previously own.
A few weeks after the incident at Tabib’s house, a car bomb in Rishpon north of Herzliya detonated inside a vehicle belonging to a businessman, and Hapoel Tel Aviv FC supporter, Dani Wolfert.
No arrests have been made in that incident.