“I’ll go with you anywhere.” That was the message Liel Yahalomi sent her mother, Mali, several days before their flight to Prague, a correspondence police say helped establish that the pair’s disappearance was planned in advance.
A police source revealed Saturday that investigators had located an earlier exchange between the two in which Liel also wrote that she supported her mother.
Mali and Liel Yahalomi
After a week in which investigators considered several possible explanations for the disappearance, police now believe financial distress was likely a major factor and that the close relationship between the mother and daughter played a central role in their decision to leave together.
“From the beginning, it was clear this was their initiative,” a police source said.
At an early stage, investigators considered whether Mali’s work at a bank could be connected to the case.
“When we were told that the mother worked at a bank, the suspicion immediately arose of a scenario like Eti Alon,” the source said, referring to the former bank employee convicted in one of Israel’s most notorious embezzlement cases.
Police contacted the bank and ruled out the possibility that Mali had stolen money. However, investigators found that before the trip she had withdrawn a substantial amount of her own money, about 14,000 euros in cash.
“When someone leaves with a sum like that, the understanding is that the intention probably isn’t to come back after four days,” the source said.
Police are also examining information suggesting that money may have been taken from the grandmother and are investigating how much she knew about the plan.
At the same time, investigators identified a series of actions they viewed as evidence of advance preparation, including deleting apps and information from phones and using photos taken in Vienna in a way that police suspect was intended to create the impression that the two were still there even after they had already left.
Police noted that Vienna also gave the pair access to a major transportation hub, allowing them to continue by train or other means to numerous destinations across Europe.
Mali and Liel after being found in Argentina
(Video: Israel Police)
Once investigators established that the two had reached South America, Israel Police representative Walter Alejandro Kogan was dispatched from Mexico to Argentina.
Police officials said information was received within hours indicating that Mali and Liel had landed in Buenos Aires and boarded a bus bound for another destination in South America.
Investigators were concerned that if they continued to a country where law-enforcement cooperation and enforcement capabilities were more limited, locating them would become significantly more difficult.
Police stressed that cooperation with law-enforcement authorities in Europe and South America had been close.
“We have excellent relations with police forces around the world, and Israel Police is held in very high regard,” a police source said.
After the two were located, the Israeli police representative arrived at the scene. Argentine authorities, however, made clear that Israel Police had no independent investigative authority in the country.
Accordingly, an attempt was made to conduct a brief and consensual questioning of the two in order to verify their condition and understand the circumstances of their arrival, rather than a formal police interrogation under Israeli authority.