Published for release: Police suspect Bnei Shlomo's southern crime organization raises huge sums of tax through foreign currency exchange stores • 36 arrested
My son Solomon
Allowed for publication: Bnei Shlomo's criminal organization is behind a series of tax evasion of hundreds of millions of shekels.
The Lachish Space Police on Friday released details of an investigation that has been undercover for months, raising suspicions that the crime organization headed by Bnei Shlomo is behind a string of hundreds of millions of tax evasion. At the beginning of the week, 36 suspects were arrested, including Shlomo himself. 26 of the suspects remain in custody. Among the suspects: Owners of money conversion funds throughout the South and Central, as well as a number of residents in the Palestinian Authority.
According to details that the police allowed to publish, the investigation, dubbed the "Horizon Line", was conducted in conjunction with the Central Unit of the Lachish Space Police, a diamond unit of the IRS and the Tel Aviv District Customs and VAT Unit. At the beginning of the week, it became visible, when 36 suspects were arrested. Across the South and in the West Bank. Hundreds of police officers, including the Ben Gurion Police Department, Border Police and special units, made the arrests. Investigators confiscated cash, luxury vehicles, and valuable equipment. At the same time, foreclosures were made and bank accounts were seized. Suspects were also investigated for involvement in contacts with members of the organization, including contractors and business owners in the southern region.
The offenses attributed to the criminal organization are violations of the Organized Crime Law, the Money Laundering Law, Value Added Tax Laws and the Income Tax Ordinance.
Among other things, a suspicion was investigated, according to which Solomon, who is defined by the police as an intelligence target and who heads the organization, has set up an array headed by another suspect among his loyalists to distribute fictitious tax invoices amounting to NIS half a billion. This, when he also helped the owners of the currency to convert currency around Lachish and the South.
In addition to Shlomo, members of the organization and other intelligence agencies of the police were arrested. The suspects have been jailed and investigated, both by police and tax authorities, and their detention has been extended over the past week. Police added that this was an investigation "that succeeded in penetrating the financial artery of the criminal organization while gathering evidence. The financial network they set up in the organization assisted his criminal activity."
In the meantime, a closure order was issued to Tsinj in the city in the south, which served as a central axis for money laundering offenses by some of the suspects, and assets forfeiting millions of shekels were frozen. The investigation is still underway and its full details are confidential under a prohibition order.