In the video: The head of the national unit for fraud investigations offers a private investigator posing as a client to wiretapping/editing: Aviad Belali
A 47-year-old Palestinian resident of Hebron will be accused of posing as professionals and blackmailing his victims in several different cases.
He was arrested at the beginning of this month in a church in East Jerusalem, where he stayed for several weeks illegally.
In the coming days, the Prelacy will file an indictment against him.
During the arrest of the Palestinian, the police searched the church and located a large number of credit cards, checks, jewelry, cell phones and passports.
In his investigation, it became clear to the investigators that in addition to entering Israel illegally, as suspected, he used to impersonate his victims each time as a different professional, in a large number of cases, and in the process, blackmailed them with threats and stole a total amount of more than NIS 700,000 from them.
In one case, the suspect posed to a widow as a lawyer and promised to take care of her late husband's inheritance.
The woman, in her innocence, gave the suspect her credit cards, passports and her husband's cell phone and transferred over half a million shekels to the suspect.
At one point, the suspect found intimate photos of the woman on the husband's cell phone and began blackmailing her with threats, pressuring her that if she did not transfer sums of money to him, he would publish her photos.
The property seized by the Palestinian Authority/Israeli Police Spokesperson
The property seized by the Palestinian Authority/Israeli Police Spokesperson
In another case, the suspect identified himself to the victim as helping to obtain building permits, after finding that the victim was living in a house without building permits, and demanded an amount of NIS 130,000 from him to arrange the permits, after which the suspect disappeared with the money.
In other cases, the suspect identified himself as the director of an association to help the needy, and in another case, identified himself as the director of a plant for the production of MMD and demanded from the victim an amount of approximately 60 thousand shekels.
The property seized by the Palestinian Authority/Israeli Police Spokesperson
The property seized by the Palestinian Authority/Israeli Police Spokesperson
His detention was extended several times during his investigation, and upon its completion, a prosecutor's statement was submitted against him and his detention was extended again until today, and an indictment is expected to be filed against him by the prosecutor's office.
Corporal Nadav Rapoport, the investigation and intelligence officer of the Shalem station, said: "This is a Palestinian suspect, a resident of Hebron, who entered Israel illegally and used to pretend to be a different professional every time and thus deceived his many victims and extorted a lot of money from them while taking advantage of their hardships.
Thanks to a professional investigation by Shalem station investigators, dozens of those involved were investigated in order to track down as many victims as possible who were harmed by his wrongful actions.
At the end of the investigation, we managed to reveal the scope and severity of the acts, and today, he is expected to stand trial."
More on the same topic:
extortion
Impersonation
Illegal resident
Palestinians