A 65-year-old Israeli citizen from Hod Hasharon was arrested this week during a layover in Athens, the Greek capital, due to an arrest warrant issued against him by Colombia. The warrant stems from an 18-year-old case in which the Israeli was accused of money laundering, but was released at the time and allowed to leave the country.
The case dates back to 2008, when Colombian authorities detained the Israeli businessman, who is involved in real estate in the country, after $125,000 was found in his suitcase. He claimed the money was intended for investments in Colombia, but the authorities rejected the explanation, charged him with money laundering and confiscated the cash. He was later released by his lawyer and permitted to leave the country.
In 2011, a verdict was issued against him for money laundering, sentencing him to 8.5 years in prison. The trial was held in absentia, and he was not informed of the ruling. Since 2011, he continued to travel internationally without any apparent issue.
In the summer of 2025, the case took a new turn when Colombian authorities renewed the verdict and forwarded it to Interpol, issuing an international arrest warrant against the Israeli. During his most recent flight from the United States to Israel, the plane made a stopover in Athens, where he was arrested. He now faces possible extradition to Colombia. During questioning, the Israeli said he had been unaware of the verdict and stated that he opposes extradition to Colombia.
Colombia is now required to submit investigative materials within 30 days to justify the extradition request. The case is considered unusual, with what appears to be clear statute-of-limitations issues, and it remains unclear why it was revived after 15 years.
His attorney, Mordechai Tzivin, who specializes in representing Israelis arrested abroad in cases involving Interpol warrants, said that in his assessment, there is a strong likelihood that Greek authorities will reject the extradition request due to Colombia’s poor human rights record. Tzivin said Greece’s judicial system is fair and upholds human rights, as in other European Union countries, and noted that there are precedents for rejecting extradition requests on similar grounds.
Tzivin said he himself previously succeeded in preventing the extradition of a senior Israeli officer (res.) from Russia to Colombia. In that case, he petitioned the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which barred Russia from extraditing the businessman to Colombia due to severe human rights violations. He added that in the current case there is also gross negligence on the part of the Colombian authorities, reflected in a delay of more than 15 years in submitting an extradition request for an incident that occurred over 18 years ago.
According to Tzivin, in this case Interpol’s decision to issue an arrest warrant was made too hastily and in violation of Interpol’s own rules. He concluded by advising anyone subject to an Interpol arrest warrant to promptly file an appeal with the appropriate department within the organization, describing it as an effective process that often uncovers significant errors.