{"id":259907,"date":"2026-08-22T07:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T07:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/259907\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T07:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T07:49:07","slug":"lahav-433-police-bust-drone-importing-smuggling-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/259907\/","title":{"rendered":"Lahav 433, police bust drone importing, smuggling operation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three men were arrested on suspicion of importing drones from China<\/a> for use in weapons and drug smuggling on Wednesday after an extensive investigation uncovered the operation.<\/p>\n

The Lahav 433 National Economic Crime Unit conducted the investigation in collaboration with the Tax Authority<\/a>, Southern Regional Police Headquarters, Ben-Gurion Airport<\/a> Customs, the Israel Prison Service\u2019s canine unit, and other law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n

The investigation centered on a security company suspected of serving as a cover for the drone-importing operation, committing customs and Value Added Tax (VAT) violations, and transferring the drones to entities involved in smuggling operations<\/a> in southern Israel.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s owner, an Ashkelon resident in his 30\u2019s, and two employees allegedly served as intermediaries and delivered the drones to individuals involved in smuggling weapons and guns.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the investigation, dozens of shipments of drones and drone equipment suspected to have been used as part of the smuggling operation were received by the company.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, police raided a warehouse owned by the company after it received a shipment containing dozens of drones. During the raid, the three suspects were arrested, and the shipment was seized.<\/p>\n

The suspects are now being investigated for suspected offenses under the VAT Law and the Customs Ordinance, as well as suspected money laundering and criminal conspiracy.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, courts granted a police request to extend the detention of two of the suspects until August 25. The court released the third suspect under restrictive conditions.<\/p>\n

According to police, the investigation is ongoing, and more arrests related to the case are expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three men were arrested on suspicion of importing drones from China for use in weapons and drug smuggling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[262,1105,711,37,5869,22951,30461,20943],"class_list":["post-259907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-china","tag-crime","tag-drone","tag-israel","tag-israel-police","tag-israel-tax-authority","tag-lahav-433","tag-smuggling"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117138067610277817","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}