Suspected officers and soldiers: provided entry permits to Palestinians in exchange for money

The central unit in the Sha'ar District, in cooperation with the Military Investigative Police and the Tax Authority's Diamond Unit, led to the indictment and arrest of 14 suspects in the trafficking of entry permits to Israel for Palestinians - in exchange for payment.

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Over the past year, the central unit in the Shi'ite district has been conducting an affair, in which a covert investigation was conducted against a number of suspects, including a number of officers and soldiers on active duty and retired, on suspicion of issuing entry permits to Israel to Palestinians on a large scale, in exchange for a payment of thousands of shekels per permit.

The police investigation revealed that the main suspect in the case - a 53-year-old resident of Sakhnin - traded entry permits to Israel for Palestinians in exchange for money through his son, a regular soldier serving at the Shaar Ephraim crossing, under the pretext of entering Israel for agricultural work in the seam zone.

The investigation also revealed that the suspect operated a network of Palestinian and Israeli intermediaries whose job was to locate Palestinians interested in entry permits to Israel and collect payment from them.

This morning (Monday), with the transition to the open phase of the investigation, police and detectives from the Shi'ite District, together with MPI investigators, raided the homes of the suspects in the affair, in various localities in Israel and Judea and Samaria, and arrested 14 suspects for questioning.

Among those arrested: a senior civil administration official, an officer, and a counterintelligence officer.

The suspects were transferred for questioning at the offices of the IDF on suspicion of crimes of receiving something by fraud, bribery and mediation in the bribery of a public servant, the prohibition of money laundering, and extortion by threats - each according to their part in the aforementioned crimes.

Later today, depending on the findings of the investigation, some of the detainees will be brought to the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court for a hearing on a request to extend their detention.