Two Jerusalem residents were indicted on Thursday after pretending to work for the Shin Bet domestic security agency and blackmailing a couple for large sums of money.
The victims are a resident of East Jerusalem — a contested part of the capital which is mostly inhabited by Palestinian Arabs who refuse to accept full Israeli citizenship — and his Palestinian wife who hails from the West Bank.
According to the indictment bill, the woman was arrested in Israel in 2014 and indicted for charges of staying illegally in the country and false impersonation.
Before the woman's court date, her husband A met with one of the suspects — Nasser Karaki — who is also an acquaintance of him and told him about his wife's arrest. Karaki told A that he knows people who would make sure his wife did not go to jail.
The couple was later informed that the charges against her have been dropped, however, Karaki was not in any way involved in the move.
About two years later, Karaki called A and told him that Israel intended to arrest his cousin and asked him to keep him posted about the situation.
In June 2019, Karaki called A again and told him that a person called Captain Yaron from the Shin Bet was interested in talking to him.
Moshe Zabag, 53, pretended to be a Shin Bet operative and instructed A to take photos of the inside of his cousin's home. Zabag threatened him that if he failed to comply, he would have to pay for his wife's criminal record being expunged five years earlier.
A refused to comply, and in response, Zabag demanded he pays him NIS 40,000 or else he would out him as a Shin Bet informant to his friends and family.
Following Zabag and Karaki's pressure on A, the three met in June 2019 at a cafe in Jerusalem where A gave the two NIS 8,000 cash which they split between them according to the indictment bill.
Zabag then handed A a document in which he stated that A still owed them NIS 32,000 which he would pay in installments.
A few days later, Zabag called A, again introducing himself as Captain Yaron from the Shin Bet, and urged him to transfer the rest of the money while threatening to tell his family about his cooperation with Israel, backed by tapes of their conversations.