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Crime boss killed in underworld Tel Aviv car bombing
By Haaretz Service and News Agencies
Tags: Tel Aviv, Israel news, crime

A car bomb in central Tel Aviv killed one of Israel's top mafia kingpins on Monday, threatening to unleash an all-out war in Israel's increasingly violent underworld.

Israel Police officials identified the dead man as Ya'akov Alperon, the head of one of the country's most powerful crime families. Medics said three bystanders were also lightly wounded in the explosion, including a 13-year-old boy.

In recent years, mob wars have plagued Israeli towns and cities.
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Rival underworld gangs have waged bloody battles for control of gambling and protection rackets, targeting each other with bullets, bombs and even anti-tank missiles in violence that has killed dozens of gangsters and at least eight bystanders in the last three years. Monday's attack was by far the most high-profile incident to date.

"An extremely serious event took place today, and its consequences are completely clear to us," Ilan Franco, the Tel Aviv police commander, said at the scene. "It likely happened because of an internal conflict within the Tel Aviv crime world.... If there are consequences to this attack we will have to deal with them."

Police officials identified the victim as Alperon, speaking on condition of anonymity because the identification had not been officially made public.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld would say only that he was a well-known underworld figure.

Alperon, Israel's most famous criminal, had also become something of a cultural icon. He and his brothers have given frequent TV interviews and were parodied on comedy shows. His immediate family even took part in a reality TV show.

Organized crime, long overshadowed by the Arab-Israeli conflict, has become such a part of everyday life that Israel has its own Sopranos-style TV series, The Arbitrator, in which even synagogues are no refuge from hit men.

The brazen, midday assassination quickly dominated the news, pushing Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza and a summit between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders off the airwaves. TV stations broke into their scheduled programming and dispatched reporters to Alperon's home in an upper-class Tel Aviv suburb.

Alperon's rental car went up in flames around noon as it was traveling on one of Tel Aviv's main thoroughfares. Police closed the street and TV footage showed his lifeless body slumped out the door.

The bloodied body was wearing the same polo shirt Alperon was seen sporting earlier in the day at a Tel Aviv courthouse, where his son, Dror, was facing indictment on a separate charge.

Alperon had many enemies, including convicted drug lord Zeev Rosenstein - who himself has survived at least seven assassination attempts - and the rival Abutbul and Abergil families, with whom the Alperons battled over a lucrative bottle-recycling racket.

Bottle recycling adds up to a $5 million-a-year industry, according to estimates by police and environmental groups. Police say criminals sell restaurants protection in exchange for empties, which leave no paper trail and offer crime families a relatively legitimate source of income.

Alperon has also had an open account with another gangster, Amir Mulner, dating to a January 2006 arbitration summit that went wrong. Knives and guns were drawn and Mulner emerged with a stab wound to the neck that was widely attributed to Alperon.

Alperon went undercover, along with his son, and police searched the country in vain for two months before both Alperons struck a deal to turn themselves in voluntarily. They were never charged.

For Israelis, the violence brought back traumatic memories of the Palestinian bomb attacks that blew up buses and shops across Israel. But while those attacks have dropped dramatically in recent years, it seems Monday's blast marks a dramatic rise in mob violence.

In the past, rival families would settle their scores quietly. But as the pot gets richer they are getting bolder, taking more risks and posing a greater threat to public safety. Most crime bosses now travel with bodyguards in armored vehicles.

Last May, Yaakov Alperon's older brother, Nissim, survived the ninth assassination attempt against him. A three-man hit team dispatched to get him was intercepted by police, and in the ensuing gunbattle a policeman was seriously wounded and one of the gunman was killed.

Over the years, the Alperons have encountered numerous police interrogations and have passed through multiple courtrooms, but police most recently focused their attention on brothers Ya'akov and Nissim as heads of the crime family.

Ya'akov Alperon was killed just days after the prosecution filed charges for indictment against his son, Dror, and another minor for alleged extortion, threats and assault of a police officer on duty.

According to the indictment, Dror Alperon allegedly extorted a promoter for Herzliya nightclub parties, threatening to injure the promoter if the latter did not hand over part of his profits.

The indictment alleges that the younger Alperon acquainted himself with the Herzliya promoter last August, under the pretense of helping him deal with certain money mishandlings. The promoter answered that he was in no need of protection, at which point Alperon allegedly demanded he pay him NIS 1,500 for each party.

Earlier this year, the Tel Aviv District Court convicted Shalom Sheetrit and Yaron Sanker for attempting to murder Ya'akov Alperon, but acquitted four others, Belarussian citizens, who were allegedly hired as hitmen by the Ohana crime family.

According to the indictment, the Ohanas had a business dispute with the Alperons and another businessman over gambling cafes. When the judges rendered their ruling, they hinted that the Alperons were targets for many of their enemies.

"The spirits of many other crime families in Israel hovered in the air of the police interrogation rooms, and especially in the courtroom," they said.

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  • Criminal activity costs Israel billions every year
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