A grandson of a chareidi Member of Knesset was arrested after he was found with a large quantity of cocaine when he landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport. Police requested to extend his remand for no less than 13 days, but the court only partially granted the request and extended his detention by six days.
It was about two hours before the last Shabbos. The suspect took off from Belgium with a temporary stopover in Prague, then landing at Ben-Gurion Airport. From the details reported by BeChadrei Chareidim, the customs inspectors in the passenger hall suspected that something was wrong, and in the subsequent examination they conducted, they located the drugs.
The suspect in custody is in his 20s, and he was found with over 11 kilograms of cocaine. They even found a few grams of the drug in the suspect’s tefilin bag.
While police tried to question him, the young suspect preferred to remain silent, stating he is not willing to say anything during Shabbos.
The suspect’s attorney insists “he has no connection to drugs”, explaining that while he does appear guilty on the surface, in fact, he fell prey to others. He added immediately after being arraigned, his client cooperated with police, adding he had no idea he was carrying drugs. Police report that he was carrying quite a bit of cocaine, with a street value of 5 million shekels.
A Lod court has complied with a request from the defense, placing a gag order on the suspect’s name until the next hearing on Thursday, 18 Iyar.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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21 Responses
Liar.
What did he think it was, bags of flour?
The attorney is definitely correct. Talking to customs agents about illegal drugs you are smuggling into EY is definitely one of the malachos that is strictly forbidden on Shabbos. Is there some reason why the name of this bochur and his MK tata haven’t haven’t been disclosed? It is impossible that a 20+ year old would not know that he was carrying multiple kgs of cocaine. Charedi bochurim may be somewhat naïve but they are not that stupid.
Here we go again. At least he’s not in Japan.
11 kilograms of cocaine! that is not a joke!
we in low class are only allowed 22 KG on luggage, so half of his luggage was cocaine! and he did NOT know what he was doing???
and it was worth millions? he must of been paid nicely to smuggle it in! Put him in jail!
It’s the ruthless and selfish handlers that need to be tracked down and flushed out. They prey on young chevraman type boys and persuade them to take a flight for them for a few hundred dollars while they are anonymous and making millions.
Poor kid. What a stupid mistake.
I’ll be curious as to how he answered these questions at security:
a. did you pack your own bag
b. did anybody give you a package
please; it was special flour to bake matzos mitzvah for next pesach. high time everyone can see the emet. his grandfather even promised to share the matzot with some very high people. without such matzoh, pesach is a downer. and btw, even a small kezait is enough to be yoetzeh the mitzvah of ad delo yadah!!
To the Mir: Either you are making a sick joke or you are deliberately casting a cloud of ignorance over yeshiva bochurim and yungerleit. They are NOT the naïve, ignorant simpletons you and others try to make them out to be as a defense to their engaging in drug trafficking that if not discovered, would certainly have resulted in the deaths of many young men and women from drug overdoses (which have nearly doubled in EY over the past decade). Some countries impose a death penalty for convicted drug traffickers like this guy. He is fortunate EY doesn’t have such a penalty but if the facts are confirmed, he will hopefully spend much of his life in jail as a deterrent to others. He is not a teenager, he is in his 20s and will rightfully be tried as an adult. The fact that he has a politically prominent grandfather will be irrelevant other than assuring the grandfather was not part of this scheme.
I wonder what litzman would have to say!
Gadolhadorah, you took the words out of my mouth. ‘TheMir’ your comments are very degrading and insulting towards a serious situation. This kid might face many years of problems and possible imprisonment because of the immature decisions he’s made. A big chillul Hashem which he caused is irresponsible.
Name him & his zeida. Why should this family be protected when others are named before conviction?
By hiding his name makes all it worse as all Frum Jews look bad. Why are the media outlets covering up the name? Answer: “The Mishpacha rather have the atmosphere against them lessened by having the bad feelings spread around for all of us.
(Continued) The media outlets not to publish because they fully sense that by not saying a name & leaving it one family (rather than being nice) by not saying the name will make all of us look bad collectively especially the UTJ party.
His name is Eechviesfin Goornisht
he thought it was flour to bake matzhos for all the pesach sheini tishen that these rebbes make
a new mishegas
grew up by alot of rabonim and rebbes
none made a tish with a shtrimel and eating matzah behsaibah!!!
I have been approached several times when flying from NY area to. BG. I have a standard answer for all requests- first they have to get it inspected by security, and then I will decide. I usually tried to speak very loud- to attract attention of security personnel. I told the security person that I did not know the person, but if they gave go-ahead I was willing to help, especially in 2 very urgent-sounding situations. In most cases the person ran away, and I left it for security to follow up. One time, the security agreed that the item was safe, but to expedite it, they got it on the plane, and told the sender how to have it retrieved in EI. Another time, I offered to take it, provided I got full identification from both the sender and the security agent. The sender quickly changed his mind. For years, I have alerted family and friends to throw the ball in someone else’s court.
Not publishing a suspect’s name, at least at first, is standard in Israel. However, I agree that after all of the highly publicized incidents of this type he should have known. The fact that some was found in his tefillin bag, and not only in a briefcase someone asked him to deliver, proves that he knew what he was doing.
The small amount found in his teffilin bag implies he was trying to skim off someof the drugs for himself and sell them later rather than only getting paid a fixed fee for his “delivery services”. I agree that in cases like this, where there is substantial evidence, the public is entitled to know the name of the suspect aftera certain amount of time has passed.
Gadol, hml, and Eli, did you not read the article? “A Lod court has complied with a request from the defense, placing a gag order on the suspect’s name until the next hearing on Thursday, 18 Iyar.” You are calling on the Yeshivah World reporter, who is presumably based in Israel, to commit a crime, exactly like what this person is accused of doing.
At this stage there is also a lashon hara issue. IMHO the issue is not the amount of time but rather when an indictment is issued. This would also protect the defendant from being railroaded.