Man impersonates father of Supernova rave victim to avoid paying traffic fine
Using photo of real victim of Hamas massacre on October 7, suspect claimed recipient of ticket was missing and so could not pay the $130 owed
An Israeli man pretended he was the father of a person murdered in the Hamas terror group’s October 7 Supernova rave massacre in order to evade paying a NIS 500 ($130) traffic fine, the spokesperson for the Israel Police’s traffic division said Thursday.
Shortly after the murderous Hamas assault, in which some 1,200 people were slaughtered and around 240 were seized as hostages as thousands of terrorists rampaged across southern Israel, police’s traffic division received a letter, purporting to be from the father of the recipient of a fine, claiming that the recipient was a victim of the attack at the Supernova music festival near Re’im, in which some 360 people were murdered as scores of other were kidnapped.
The man who sent the letter, who was not identified by the police, wrote the appeal while pretending to be his father of a man who was missing and as a result could not pay the NIS 500 owed.
The letter, a copy of which was published by the police spokesperson, said: “I’d be grateful if you could cancel this fine, and I’m not interested in chasing after you. My son who received the fine and was supposed to pay has been missing since the massacre at the Supernova festival, where the police and and the army abandoned them.”
Attached to the letter was a photo purportedly of the son.
In a statement, Deputy Superintendent Orit Friedman of the Israel Police’s traffic division said that while at first, the unit intended to cancel the fine, it grew suspicious after failing to find confirmation that what the man was asserting was true.
Suspecting that the man was attempting to file a fraudulent claim, the traffic division launched an investigation, cross-checking the information with other police units and the Justice Ministry’s Center for the Collection of Fines, which since October 7 has been locating and canceling debts owed by murdered, captive or missing people.
Over the course of the investigation, the police found that the photo provided by the man was of a person with a different name entirely, who was killed by Hamas terrorists at the festival, and the name of the supposed victim did not appear on any lists of names of murdered, captive or missing people.
The man who wrote the letter was detained during the investigation on suspicion of trying to obtain something fraudulently, impersonation and obstructing an investigation. He was released at the end of the investigation.
“I am shocked by the thought that a person would declare that he was murdered in order to cancel a fine worth NIS 500,” Friedman said.
This incident is not the first time that crimes or attempted crimes have been committed in the wake of the Supernova Festival massacre.
In November, the police arrested five individuals suspected of stealing around NIS 2 million worth of sound equipment belonging to a man murdered at the music festival. In October, a man was charged with stealing a trailer from the massacre site after entering on false pretenses, claiming he was helping with the search for bodies.
The Times of Israel Community.