News Archive 2002: Robberies in the Rehovot Area and the South Involving Large Amounts of Money and Expensive Equipment

According to police speculations, the gang has been involved in dozens of robberies in the Rehovot area and the south involving large amounts of money and expensive equipment. Rehovot police chief, Hen Surie, says: "We're talking about a professional gang which does not stop at violence. Investigations show that in some cases they even used a jeep with police signs."
The first burglary in the area occurred around three months ago when the safe was stolen from the Club-Market supermarket in Asheret. The police knew immediately that this was a professional job. Further burglaries followed a similar pattern. The suspects would arrive in two vehicles: a 4 x 4 jeep on which they would load the booty and another escape vehicle which would lie in wait nearby. They would remove iron bars with a heavy rope tied to the jeep or else drive the jeep straight in through the door like in the movies. Safes were what they were most interested in but they also loaded other items on the jeep. Then they would take the stolen goods to a nearby quiet hiding place. The police suspect that they have several such bases where they store stolen goods awaiting sale. So far equipment worth over NIS 100,000 has been found in a wood between Rehovot and Yavne and four safes have been discovered on the sand dunes between Yavne and Ashdod.

Source: R Harari. Focus on Rehovot & Rishon Lezion. Jerusalem Post .com (4 oct 2002) [Fulltext]