Police arrest 5 for smuggling phones to security prisoners
Gang paid warehouse workers thousand of shekels to place phones, SIMs in food and drink cartons headed for Ofer jail canteen
Police announced on Sunday that they had uncovered a network to smuggle cellphones to jailed security prisoners and arrested five suspects.
A statement from police said that five people working for a company supplying canteen products to Israeli prisons had been arrested for smuggling phones and SIM cards to prisoners. One of those arrested is a Palestinian and four are Israeli citizens.
Workers at the warehouse supplying drinks to the prison canteen were reportedly paid sums up to NIS 8,000 ($2,250) for each regular phone they placed in a case of food or drink to smuggle into the jail, and NIS 15,000 ($4,245) for each smartphone.
נחשפה רשת להברחת טלפונים סלולריים לאסירים ביטחוניים הכלואים בישראל: הטלפונים הוברחו בארגזי סחורה שיועדו לקנטינות בבתי הכלא pic.twitter.com/I9nRR3rXXM
— משטרת ישראל (@IL_police) October 1, 2017
The undercover investigation was launched in August, after officials at Ofer Prison discovered cellphones and SIM cards hidden in shipments of food bound for their canteen.
One carton of soft drink contained five cellphones and dozens of SIM cards, Ynet news site reported. A few days later another case of drink was discovered to contain six finger-sized phones.
During their investigation, police discovered a well-organized smuggling ring. The perpetrators were reportedly already selected to carry out the smuggling and then applied for work at the supplier, who provided the prison canteen with the food and drink cartons.
Additionally, the distributor supplies food to institutions throughout the country with the destinations indicated only by a bar code. The smugglers reportedly knew which codes signified that the food was bound for the prison.
The five were remanded into custody, and are expected to be charged on Monday.
In January, police caught a man “red-handed” as he tried to smuggle cellphones and money to a prisoner serving a life sentence for national security crimes.
In July, Basel Ghattas, a former MK, was jailed for for smuggling cellphones to security prisoners while he was serving as a lawmaker for the Joint (Arab) List party. Footage from a Prisons Service surveillance camera showed the Arab lawmaker passing envelopes to prisoners at the Ketziot Prison in the south.
In April, the Beersheba Magistrate’s Court accepted a plea bargain reached between state prosecutors and Ghattas, who was convicted of exploiting his position to sneak cellphones and notes to convicted Palestinian terrorists.
The Times of Israel Community.