Last update - 00:00 23/10/2007
Palestinian smugglers arrested driving fake police vans
By Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondent
Beit Shean Police on Monday arrested two Palestinians attempting to smuggle 40 illegal Palestinian workers into Israel in commercial trucks that had been painted to resemble Police vans.
The drivers, both residents of East Jerusalem, had gone so far as to fit the trucks with fake police lights and sirens.
The trucks were stopped by Police after they drove through a checkpoint in the northern Jordan Valley with sirens and lights blazing. Police at the checkpoint became highly suspicious of the makeshift Police vans and pulled them over.
After a brief check, Police found that one driver was wanted by Police and the other was driving on a suspended license. When they opened the trucks, Police found around 40 illegal Palestinian workers crammed into the storage bays.
Beit Shean Police Commander Shimon Ben Sabo stated that it was probably not the first time the men had entered Israel in this fashion and that they are taking the incident very seriously as the two could easily have been transporting terrorists.