Israel Police has arrested four suspects from Beersheva who allegedly defrauded a woman from the center of the country out of $500,000.

The suspects, who pretend to be professionals and normative citizens, hurt the victims and their families by exploiting their distress and fraudulently removing huge sums of money. “We invest in intelligence activities, the use of special means and cooperation with police units around the world in order to expose the perpetrators and exhaust the investigation with them,” a police spokesman explained.

The scam that has been carried out in recent weeks was exposed by Israel Police fraud investigators, criminals from the southern region who forged checks and defrauded local authorities, including the Center for the Collection of Fines, which led investigators to expose the “sting” of four suspects in Beersheva.

In this particular case, the woman’s former husband was arrested three years ago in the United States for fraud crimes, and the suspects took advantage of the situation because her husband could not contact her. They contacted her and persuaded her that her husband was in secret contacts to be a state witness in the United States. He was asked to transfer NIS 50,000 by cash in the mail for “document translation,” and then $450,000 in three installments by means of emissaries who arrived at her home.

Her ex-husband was arrested on suspicion of a huge fraud in the US, and is now in US custody, after being extradited in 2016.

A short time after making payment, the woman realized she had been victimized and contacted police.

The four suspects were indicted on Monday, 16 Kislev.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)