Police raid Land Authority offices in graft probe
Fraud investigation unit seizes documents as senior figure is questioned about inappropriate practices
Police fraud investigators raided the offices of the Israel Land Authority in Jerusalem early Thursday morning and questioned a senior official in connection to a corruption probe into the government body’s activities.
The Lahav 433 National Fraud unit is investigating irregularities, improper management, and conflicts of interest at the ILA.
A senior ILA figure, who was not identified, was questioned by police.
“Within the framework of an investigation being carried out by the Lahav 433 National Fraud unit there is currently an operation to seize documents from the offices of the Israel Land Authority,” police said.
Police hoped to learn more about the case from seized documents before summoning members of the staff for questioning.
According to a report from the Hebrew-language Ynet website, in addition to the ILA official, a former member of Knesset who is now on the board of a large real estate company was also questioned.
The raid came after an undercover operation in recent weeks that was launched after Lahav 433 received information from a source inside the ILA, a government agency that manages public land in Israel, formerly known as the Israel Land Administration.
Among the suspicions are that the senior ILA figure had a conflict of interest in his dealings with the real estate company because of his previous work as an adviser for the same company.
According to the report, he handled files at the ILA that were connected to land leasing for the company and other deals involving tens of millions of shekels.
Investigators noted that the case has no connection to another large corruption case, also linked to the ILA, involving dozens of public officials and senior members of the Yisrael Beytenu party, Channel 2 reported.