The suspects in the B’Chadrei Chareidim website case have been remanded today, Monday, April 2, 2012. Police were operating a clandestine investigation against the operators of the major website and ultimately arrested the general-manager,  along with senior website officials. They are facing charges of blackmail and extortion. A gag order remains in place in Israel, prohibiting releasing details of the case and ongoing investigation.

Despite the court’s gag order, the forums in Israel are abuzz about details of the case, explaining the operators of the site ran defamatory stories on prominent rabbonim or threatened to run such stories in the frum community, then extorting money to back down from the libelous reports.

Some of the names mentioned as targeted in scathing articles on the website are Rav Yeshayahu Pinto, askan Dudi Zilbershlag, and persons affiliated with Baba Elazar.

The Haaretz website anonymously quotes a “senior ultra-Orthodox figure” as saying “This is going to be one of the biggest extortion scandals in the history of Israel.”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)