Robbers ram tractor into post office, steal over NIS 100,000
Police suspect robbers deliberately picked day before senior citizens collect their National Insurance welfare to steal money.
Robbers broke into a post office at Majd al-Krum in the Galilee on Wednesday, using a tractor. The robbers managed to pull out the branch's vault and stole more than NIS 100,000. The post office's security camera captured the robbery.
The video footage shows two masked men arrive at the scene in a pick-up truck and a third man riding a stolen tractor. The tractor driver was seen pulling the vault out and the rest of the robbers loaded it onto the truck and fled the scene.
They shattered the post office window panes, loaded the safe and escaped. Eventually they left the tractor's engine running and transferred the vault to the car they arrived in.
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Karmiel police opened an investigation but no suspects have been arrested yet. The police estimates that the break-in took place deliberately just a few hours before the National Insurance Institute gives out its monthly payments, mostly to senior citizens.
The police suspect that the burglars arrived to the village in a stolen vehicle around 3:30 am and stole a tractor that belongs to a Majd al-Krum resident.
The burglarized branch has moved to its location two months ago, closer to the highway.
One of the town's residents said that the tractor owner was notified about the theft, and that several people saw the robbers and tried to stop them but without success.
An elderly man that arrived to the post office in the morning in the hope of receiving his National Insurance welfare said that "these people should be ashamed, they belong in prison and the police needs to do whatever it can to catch them".
The police said the vault contained more than NIS 100,000, while the branch's employees claimed it was more than NIS 300,000.
