5 indicted on suspicion of extorting business owners in racketeering scheme

Police indict five residents of the northern town Tuba-Zangariyye on suspicion of extorting business owners in a broader racketeering scheme.

A law enforcement spokesman says investigators covertly trailed the five suspects last month as they broke into a construction site near Migdal HaEmek and proceeded to damage and steal parts of its heavy equipment.

The suspects buried the stolen equipment in the field to later “facilitate negotiations for its return,” police say. Officers arrested the five as they returned north to Tuba-Zangariyye.

Police reached out to the construction site manager, who told them that he had been contacted by someone who offered him security services a few days prior to the incident, but he refused the proposal.

“Tuba-Zangariyye is home to several criminal gangs whose activities impact the daily lives of law-abiding residents in the northern district,” says the spokesman.

He adds that over the past few months, local law enforcement has “focused on a gang from Tuba-Zangariyye involved in extorting protection fees from construction sites and businesses in northern Israel.”