The Shin Bet informed members of the Central Elections Committee that "the intelligence presented by the service's professionals indicates allegedly widespread phenomena of large sums of money being funneled into Israel from foreign countries, originating from entities with hidden and even hostile interests, aimed at advancing foreign influence, and in our view require further intelligence and investigative efforts. From the information gathered so far, it appears that operations for funding and foreign influence involving massive sums are a widespread phenomenon affecting thousands of people and possibly even more. At this stage, we must complete additional collection and investigative operations to obtain intelligence that will allow us to connect the dots and point with a high level of certainty and reliability to the scope of the phenomenon."