Another kingpin arrested in mob shakeup

Police announced Thursday the arrest of another alleged mob kingpin, the latest arrest in a massive, ongoing underworld bust that has been dominating headlines in Israel for the past week.

The man is among 15 new suspects held in the case, and joins such heavyweights as the crime family boss Yitzhak Abergil, who is already in prison for drug offenses carried out in the US.

The newly arrested suspects, who were not immediately named, were allegedly behind the murder of a top Israeli criminal in Germany and two other attempted murders, also abroad.

They are also suspected in a string of drug offenses and acts of violence.

The multi-year investigation, dubbed “Case 512” and described as one of the largest underworld busts in Israel’s history, encompasses some 40 individual investigations into crimes committed over the past 12 years by some 50 suspects, police said earlier this week.

On Sunday, over 50 suspects across Israel were apprehended in their homes and brought in for interrogation, with officers seizing vehicles, properties and bank accounts.

On Tuesday it was revealed that Yitzhak Abergil was among the suspects arrested earlier this week.

Abergil, who is already in prison, is suspected of involvement in a failed attempt to target another top mobster, Zeev Rosenstein, over a decade ago in an attack that killed three unconnected bystanders.

Abergil and his brother Meir were arrested in August 2008 in Israel following an American extradition request, after they were named in an indictment that charged them with using a San Fernando Valley gang to distribute one million MDMA pills, colloquially known as Ecstasy, and paying a gang member to kill a man for stealing a drug shipment. Abergil was handed over to US officials in January 2011.

In May 2012 Abergil pleaded guilty to the charges as part of a plea agreement, and was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison, of which he has already served over six (including time spent in prison prior to sentencing). His brother Meir was sentenced to 42 months and has since been released. Abergil returned to Israel in January 2014 to serve the remainder of his sentence in an Israeli prison.

Two state witnesses are said to have been involved in the investigation, which gained impetus in 2008, when police cracked the case of the failed 2003 assassination attempt on Rosenstein, leading to breakthroughs in six other murder cases and 15 attempted murders.

Rosenstein, Abergil’s bitter rival at the time, was targeted in a bomb attack on a Tel Aviv street. Although Rosenstein survived the hit attempt, three innocent bystanders were killed and 18 injured in the blast, which occurred at the height of the Second Intifada, when Israelis were targeted by repeated Palestinian suicide bombings.

Rosenstein, like Abergil, later faced drug trafficking charges in the US. He was extradited by Israel and in 2007 was sentenced to 12 years in prison, which he has been serving out in Israel.

Other crimes linked to Abergil include an earlier attempt on Rosenstein, the disappearance of Israeli mob figure Micah Ben-Harush in South Africa, and the operation of a massive international drug-trafficking ring, the Hebrew-language Walla news site reported.

Israeli officials have vowed in recent years to step up operations against organized crime as a string of car bombings linked to crime syndicates rocked Israeli cities.