2 suspected mobsters held over alleged gangland murder plot
Members of known criminal organization caught with explosives and detonators in central Israel
A police unit on Thursday arrested two suspected criminals who were allegedly on their way to carry out an assassination in an unnamed central Israeli city.
The two suspects, both members of a known criminal organization, were caught with explosive devices and detonators, Channel 10 news reported.
Israeli officials have vowed to crackdown on organized crime in recent years, following a spate of car bombings that rocked parts of Israel. During 2015, police made a series of arrests involving dozens of members of crime organizations across the country.
Last month, a man known to police — who had reportedly run afoul of two major organized crime families by turning state witness — was killed in an underworld car-bombing in Tel Aviv. A week earlier, a 30-year-old Israeli woman was shot dead in front of her three young children in Beersheba in a mob murder.
In January, three people were injured in a Tel Aviv suburb, when a car exploded and burst into flames in a suspected underworld hit attempt.