An employee at a duty free restaurant in the airport is suspected of having used his employee card, which allows entry and exit from the restricted areas of the airport, to purchase commercial quantities of cigarettes and tobacco products without paying the taxes required for this, and to put them up for sale in Israel through social networks, mainly Telegram.
Smuggled cigarettes worth hundreds of thousands of shekels (archive), photo: police spokespersons
As part of an activity by the Narcotics and Customs Unit (YSM), the suspicion arose that Shanir Kalimi, who works at a duty free restaurant, frequently smuggles tobacco products into Israel.
Last night (Monday) in the evening, the employee was seen purchasing tobacco products at a duty free shop.
After the purchase, the suspect left the duty free using his employee card, and went to the employee parking lot without returning the products.
After he was detained for inspection, he was found in his possession of 12 packets that he had purchased that evening and in his car were found another 12 packets that he had purchased the day before.
From an inspection of the information systems, it was found that the suspect made about 340 purchases of duty free tobacco products during the last 8 months, for a cumulative amount of over NIS 340,000.
The amount of tax that evaded payment is estimated at half a million NIS.
According to the suspicion, the employee manipulated the enforcement authorities by purchasing flight tickets that allowed him to purchase products tax-free, did not show up for flights, and used his employee card to transfer the products to his car without going through the customs inspection route.
The suspect has two previous offenses of attempting to illegally introduce cigarettes through the green route in 2016 and 2019.
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