Kiryat Gat: drug addict blackmailed helpless old man

For months, a lonely and sickly old man was subjected to blackmail by a young man in his thirties, who demanded money from him to finance the drugs he consumed. The one who brought about the exposure of the affair and the end of the nightmare was the community policeman.

The beginning of the affair was in the complaint filed by the victim, a resident of Kiryat Gat aged 62, about an incident of breaking into his home and stealing his pension funds, which amounted to NIS 1,400.

In light of the complainant's medical condition, a paraplegic, who has recently suffered a stroke, a policeman of the Bnei Yisrael quarter in the city, Warrant Officer Shmuel Amar, came to collect evidence. During testimony and discussion with the complainant, he noticed his distress, and felt that there is something else which the complainant refrained from telling him. As a result, he decided to keep his personal cell phone number, in case he will need his assistance in the future.

Meanwhile, an investigation was started on the intelligence level in order to trace the intruder, as well as another factor threatening the complainant. Police intelligence of Kiryat Gat pointed to a resident who had been blackmailing the complainant for a while.

The investigation revealed that the suspect – a drug addict – has a practice to blackmail the victim for sums of money, while threatening that if he will not transfer sums of money to him, he will harm him. The suspect was detained for questioning, and after his arrest the complainant agreed to share with his interrogators the course of events, noting that his acquaintance with the suspect amounted to that they used to buy from the same grocery store, where apparently the suspect identified the opportunity to take from the helpless man sums of money ranging from 100 to 200 shekels each time (in total he handed him a total sum of 2000 shekels) for two months,.

On Thursday, a severe indictment was submitted against the suspect, by attorney Shalom Cohen of the South Claims.

Kiryat Gat station commander, Chief Superintendent Ofer Shomer, would like to stress: "The crime of blackmailing is one of the offenses which it is difficult to detect, that being due to the great concern of the threatened. The Israeli Police does everything in its means to reach those criminals and eliminate their operation. Police intervention in these cases is essential to improving the quality of life of the complainant, as this puts a stop to the series of threats. In this case we saw immediate importance in locating the suspect, mainly due to the medical condition of Mr. Amar and his being helpless. "

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