Lead investigator in Netanyahu fraud case resigns from police
Assistant Commissioner Yoav Telem, 51, quits before he was to take over Arab crime unit; joins wave of resignations since appointment of Ben Gvir’s handpicked police commissioner
A senior police officer who led the Case 4000 fraud investigation against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to resign from the force on Thursday.
Assistant Commissioner Yoav Telem, 51, is the head of the police’s fraud investigations division. He was recently reassigned by Commissioner Daniel Levy to lead the unit dealing with crime in Israel’s Arab community, and was to be promoted to the rank of deputy commissioner.
Telem’s resignation came for “personal reasons,” according to police sources.
Police said that “Assistant Commissioner Telem is one of the most brilliant investigative officers in the organization. He has served in the police force for nearly three decades, and was a partner in the establishment of [police’s serious crimes unit] Lahav 433. He led the Case 512 investigation that brought heads of organized crime in Israel to justice.”
Telem’s resignation is the latest in a wave of high-ranking police officers who have resigned or retired in recent months, amid reported widespread disgruntlement over the force’s conduct under far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and he is the fourth to resign since Daniel Levy was appointed commissioner.
Levy was appointed as the new police chief after Ben Gvir’s first choice, Avshalom Peled, withdrew his candidacy over heavy opposition to him filling the role.
Telem’s most high-profile investigation was Case 4000, also known as the Bezeq-Walla case, against Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Case 4000 is the most serious of the multiple charges the prime minister faces, and focuses on allegations that Netanyahu authorized regulatory decisions that financially benefited Bezeq telecommunications giant shareholder Shaul Elovitch to the tune of hundreds of millions of shekels between 2012 and 2017. In return, Netanyahu allegedly received favorable media coverage from the Walla news site, also owned at the time by Elovitch.
Telem also led the investigation into Case 3000, the so-called submarine affair, in which several close associates of Netanyahu, but not the premier himself, were suspected of receiving illicit funds as part of a massive graft scheme in the multi-billion-shekel state purchase of naval vessels and submarines from German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp. Some have called it the largest suspected graft scandal in the country’s history.
In June, a state commission of inquiry investigating the affair found that Netanyahu made decisions relating to the submarine purchases that endangered national security and harmed Israel’s foreign relations.
