In the video: undercover police activity to arrest drug dealers (photo: Israel Police, editing: Amit Simcha)
Lahav 433 investigators arrested another suspect tonight (Sunday) in involvement in the smuggling of cocaine by sea, in which the father of network star Ben Zini, Yekutiel Zini, is involved.
The other suspect is 51-year-old Assi Mosh, a criminal, a resident of Kiryat Ata, who is known to the police.
In 2017, Mosh was deported from Colombia to Israel on suspicion of soliciting minors for prostitution and tax offenses.
The police suspect that in addition to the cocaine shipment seized in recent months, those involved smuggled another shipment of the drug at the beginning of the year.
For now, the police have one shipment of cocaine weighing 36 kg, which was imported from Colombia.
believes in his father's innocence.
Ben Zini (photo: screenshot, Instagram)
In the case of Yekutiel Zini, the police claim that he is a central suspect in the case, and the police have the tapes linking him to the smuggling.
In his investigation, the police presented documentation of him together with other suspects meeting and planning the smuggling.
Zini, for his part, continues to deny what is attributed to him and claimed that prohibited interrogation methods are being used against him.
"There is no evidence that I am connected to importing drugs," he told the judge.
"Look at the recordings, what tricks and ugly things they say, as if they want to attack me, and they will say that I attacked, you don't understand what tricks, they seized my assets in the millions."
At the previous hearing on the extension of his detention, Zini told the judge: "I ask to be tested by a polygraph, for me drugs are like treason, it is assigned, I am embarrassed and ashamed that I was questioned about such a thing, it is the end of the world for me."
One of those involved, a diver by training, claimed in his investigation that he dived three times in order to retrieve a box that was disposed of in the sea near the coast, but distanced himself from smuggling the cocaine.
"I worked on them, I did a tour, I didn't go there," he claimed.
The arrest of the 9 suspects was extended until Wednesday.
According to the suspicion, the drugs were hidden inside a ship transporting coal and their value was estimated at millions of shekels.
The suspects were arrested after the Yachbal unit of the police conducted an undercover investigation in recent months together with customs and the Haifa VAT at the Tax Authority, "regarding the importation of dangerous cocaine-type drugs into Israel."
news
News in Israel
Criminal and legal news
Tags
drugs
cocaine
Ben Zini