18 arrested, including IDF soldier, in weapon smuggling ring bust

Police on Tuesday arrested 18 people, among them a serving IDF soldier, on suspicion they were involved in a weapons and drugs dealing network to supply the criminal underworld with guns and explosives.

One of the suspects, a student at a college in the south of the country, allegedly stored explosive charges in her dormitory room as they were being traded to criminals.

Hundreds of police officers raided homes across the country to apprehend the suspects in the culmination of a month-long intelligence and evidence gathering operation into the network that also dealt in hard narcotics.

The investigation uncovered a weapons trading group operating out of the southern towns of Rahat and Sderot. The group allegedly employed two women as part of its operation, one of them the student who used her dorm room as a weapons storage site.

In addition to obtaining explosives, the group also bought improvised Carl Gustav sub-machine guns from residents of the Israeli Arab town of Kafr Qasim and the West Bank city of Hebron. The weapons were transported by one of the suspects, a Sderot resident, while hidden in a baby crib.

Police took the suspects away for questioning and planned to request they be ordered to be held in custody .