The police recorded an intelligence and deterrent achievement this weekend, with the arrest of Shay Avital in Amsterdam, against criminals who fled the country in the past year in an attempt to escape the threat of justice.
It is still unclear how this arrest will end and when Avital will be extradited to Israel.
Past experiences show that the legal path is complicated.
Entanglement with the law, heavy debts, and in recent years also shaming - all are reasons to get on a plane and run away.
The fugitives usually hold foreign passports, and often flee to countries with which Israel does not have an extradition agreement.
They are counting on the time that will pass until their capture, and on the fact that the evidence against them may weaken, that witnesses against them will repent or disappear, or that prosecutors will give up.
The moments of Shay Avital's arrest in the Netherlands, photo: Police spokespersons
Cross-border cooperation
Until 2006, the Israel Police belonged to the Asian bloc of Interpol, which made it very difficult to cooperate, since a significant part of Israel's operational cooperation is conducted with European countries.
Interpol enables cross-border cooperation between police and enforcement agencies abroad, and controls the operational database and police databases.
Past experience shows that these collaborations are successful, and sometimes there is a lot of similarity between them.
Avital Nazak is indeed in the hands of local police officers, but the exact intelligence regarding his whereabouts was provided by the Israel Police.
similarities
The surprising arrest upon leaving a restaurant in Amsterdam was strikingly similar to the arrest at the time of Boaz Yona, who at the time was the head of the "Haftziva" company, which, following its collapse, fled abroad.
Shay Avital and Esti Ginzburg (archive), photo: Meir Partosh
Like Avital, Yona also stayed in several different countries, and was stopped when he was leaving a restaurant in Italy when he was completely surprised.
Yona's arrest operation was then commanded by Lieutenant Dror Asraf, the same officer who this time commanded Avital's arrest operation, being the head of the investigations division in the Investigations and Intelligence Division.
Like Avital, Yona was arrested in August and by the same method.
Asraf followed Yona and his wife at the time, and when they left a restaurant he shouted his name.
When Yuna turned towards him, the identification was bingo - and he stopped.
On Thursday evening, Asraf received the information about the presence of Shai Avital in a restaurant in Amsterdam, and the manner in which he arrested Yona in Italy led the representative of the police in the Netherlands, Deputy Superintendent Yael Reichard, to the identification and arrest of Avital.
Avital, like Yona, is now expected to conduct a tedious legal battle through his lawyers.
In Israel they have already made it clear that an indictment can be filed against him.
It is still unclear if and what punishment will be imposed on Avital when he is extradited to Israel.
What is certain is that in the age of social networks, the image of someone who was a "model agent" being handcuffed as the last of the criminals in a lively center of nightlife in the heart of Amsterdam will haunt him for the rest of his life.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us
