Unit 105 arrested four members of a family from Ashkelon on Tuesday on suspicion of defrauding and deceiving dozens of victims through a ticket-selling Telegram group after they took over the victims' WhatsApp accounts and demanded a ransom for releasing the accounts. The detainees allegedly identified themselves to the victims from various Facebook profiles. On Wednesday, they were remanded in custody.
Launch of the Child Online Protection Bureau // GPO
Unit 105 at Lahav 433, which serves as the national headquarters for the protection of children online, opened an investigation after receiving several reports to the 105 hotline of minors who said they had contacted another person through a Telegram group called "Tickets for performances all over the country." The various reports also received different names of the same person, including: "Ofek Asor", "Yaakov Vaknin", "Avner Levy", "Itzik Mizrahi", "Yaniv Cohen", and "Nir Levy".
Subsequently, the minors reported that after the contact was established, the same person took over their WhatsApp account, and this was not enough - in a significant number of cases he even asked the victims' contacts and on their behalf, to transfer money to him. Following the fraudulent acts, the suspect demanded a ransom from the victims in exchange for releasing the accounts.
After contacting them, they took over their WhatsApp accounts and demanded a ransom (illustrative), photo: Reuters
During the course of the investigation, there was a significant development that led to the identification of dozens of additional victims besides those who reported, were defrauded and deceived in a similar way. Unit investigators located the victims, and it is suspected that there are other victims. The 105 hotline asks that anyone who has been deceived in a similar way contact them.
Yesterday, after identifying the main suspect in the case (17), he was located and arrested by detectives from Unit 105 along with other special forces. A knife and thousands of shekels in cash were seized in his possession.
The four detainees - family members from Ashkelon (illustration), photo: GettyImages
In addition, members of his family were arrested: both his parents and his younger brother (15), all from Ashkelon. The suspects were brought to the unit's offices for interrogation, at the end of which they were imprisoned, and this morning, during a hearing at the Rishon LeZion Magistrate's Court, the main suspect's detention was extended for another five days. His parents and brother were remanded in custody for three days.
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