New footage released Saturday evening shows Mali and Liel Yahalomi alongside the Israeli police officer who located them in Buenos Aires after nearly a week of searches.
The two women are seen with Walter Kogan, Israel Police’s representative in South America, during a brief questioning outside the bus on which they were found. Mali is seen smoking a cigarette while Liel and Kogan stand beside her.
Israel Police representative Walter Kogan with Liel and Mali Yahalomi
Police spokesman Aryeh Doron told Channel 12 that Kogan said the two were highly emotional when he met them.
“They hugged him, and what really moved them was when he told them, ‘An entire country is worried about you, even outside the bus,’” Doron said.
He described Kogan as “a man with a significant intelligence background, a professional who did an excellent job.”
After a week in which investigators examined multiple scenarios surrounding the pair’s disappearance, police now believe financial distress was likely a central factor and that the close bond between mother and daughter played a major role in their decision to leave together.
“From the beginning, it was clear this was their initiative,” a police source said earlier Saturday.
Investigators also uncovered a message sent by Liel to her mother before the trip in which she wrote: “I’ll go with you anywhere.”
At an early stage, police examined whether Mali’s work at a bank could be connected to the disappearance.
“When we were told the mother worked at a bank, the suspicion immediately arose of a scenario like Eti Alon,” the source said, referring to the former Israeli bank employee convicted in a major embezzlement case.
Police contacted the bank and ruled out any theft of funds. Investigators did, however, discover that before the trip Mali withdrew about 14,000 euros in cash from her own money.
“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 money may have been taken from the grandmother and are looking into how much she knew about the plan.
Investigators identified several additional actions they viewed as signs of advance preparation, including deleting apps and information from phones and using photos taken in Vienna in a way police suspect was designed to create the impression the women were still there after they had already moved on.
Police also noted that Vienna offered access to a major transportation hub, allowing the pair to continue by rail or other means to multiple European countries.
Investigators found that Mali made one attempt to call the Israeli consulate in Vienna, but the call went unanswered. Police said it remains unclear why she tried to contact the consulate.
Bought phones in Czechia, photographed in Vienna, flew to Argentina
The journey did not begin in Vienna, as initially believed, but in Czechia, where phones can be purchased without presenting a passport.
Police believe the mother and daughter then continued to Vienna, where they recorded videos intended for their family. Those videos were only sent after the pair had already moved on to another country, believed to be Germany.
According to a senior police official, investigators believe the delay was intended to create the false impression that they were still in Vienna.
Their phone was last located near a train station in the Austrian capital.
From Germany, the two flew to Argentina, where they were found by Kogan.
Police believe Buenos Aires may not have been their final destination and that the pair intended to continue elsewhere in South America. Authorities have not disclosed the destination, and it remains unclear whether they ultimately continued their journey.
Kogan was dispatched from Mexico to Argentina once investigators established that the pair had reached South America.
Police officials said that within hours they obtained information indicating that Mali and Liel had landed in Buenos Aires and boarded a bus heading toward another destination.
The concern was that if they continued into a country where law-enforcement cooperation was more limited, locating them would become significantly more difficult.
Behind the search was a large Israel Police intelligence operation involving around 300 investigators and intelligence personnel working around the clock to reconstruct the pair’s route.