40 People Arrested in Two Drug Busts after Operation

On Monday morning, the Israeli Police disclosed the arrest of 33 suspected drug dealers after evidence was provided against them by a former criminal in the last eight months. On Sunday, seven people had also been arrested after a five-month-long surveillance operation in Ashdod for operating a drug laboratory based on a hydro plant. The police in Israel are ramping up their operations against organized crime. The Jerusalem district of the police handled the former criminal and the goal of the operation was to incriminate dangerously and leading drug dealers. He had been able to purchase some dangerous drugs directly from the dealers, which included huge quantities of MDMA, cocaine, LSD, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and more. 

The ages of the suspected drug dealers are between 20 and 40 and they hail from different areas, including Beit Shemesh, Lod, Jerusalem, and a few Bedouin villages and towns. At the time of the arrest, the police had also seized large amounts of cash, additional drugs, along with 14 vehicles belonging to dealers who are suspected of some other economic infractions. Kobi Shabtai, the police Insp.-Gen said that they had been focused on operations in the core of crime syndicates in the past year and would continue doing so for ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the Israeli people. 

Doron Turjeman, the head Asst.-Ch. Of the police in the Jerusalem District, appreciated the mole as well as his handlers for the creativity and sophistication they had shown throughout the operation. The details of the mole had been put under a gag order. Another unrelated operation was conducted by detectives in the Lachish district on Sunday. They raided a hydro-lab that had been running in the basement of a building that was located in the north of Ashdod. The lab was spread over an area of 800 sqm and had been divided into rooms according to the stages of the growth of the plant. 

This included one room that was for harvesting the plants and production of the drug. More than 3,100 plants were seized by the detectives, which were almost ready for distribution and weighed almost half a ton. As for the net worth of the plants, it was around tens of millions of shekels. During the raid, they arrested about seven people between the ages of 18 and 50. Five of these people had been in the lab, while the other two were also involved in the operation. A truck and three cars were also seized during this operation.

The Lachish Police said that they had been surveilling the lab from day one. They had been conducting the operation for five months and had collected evidence on the people involved. The Spokesperson’s Unit of the Israeli Police said that they would continue to use economic and criminal enforcement for combatting the use of dangerous drugs and would activate agents and use a combination of covert and overt investigative actions for locating, arresting, and then prosecuting the criminals. It said that the focus would be on drug traffickers and distributors.