A Rishon Letzion resident who had NIS 1.6 million stolen from his home at the beginning of the month was arrested recently on suspicion that he went on a vigilante mission, during which he kidnapped his neighbor and tortured her after discovering that she was involved in the robbery.

On Thursday, the police will request to extend the remand of the four suspects in the robbery. The victim of the robbery and two of his friends were released on restricted terms.

The affair, under investigation by detectives from the Shfela district police, began three weeks ago when the Rishon Letzion resident, who owns a local car wash business, returned home to discover that all the money he had kept in his home - some NIS 1.6 million - was gone.

 

"The man submitted a complaint and told us that he likes to keep his money at home, and that the sum included his children's money as well. However, when we arrived at his house their were no signs that someone had broken in," detective Anat Kazav said.

The complainant did not trust that the police would find the robbers and began his own private investigation. Itw as then that he and his wife noticed that his next-door neighbor had shown unusual interest in the robbery and had asked if they had called the police.

"She was showing too much interest, which made them suspicious. So he asked her to take a polygraph test to see if she had been involved in the robbery. The woman refused, making the complainant only more suspicious. He pressured her more and more to do the test," Kazav said.

After one week, the woman backed down and agreed to take the test. She drove with her neighbor in his car, but instead of taking her to the polygraph institute, he picked up two friends in Ramle and drove to an abandoned building in the city.

"They forced her into the building, tied her up and began to severely beat her while threatening to set her on fire if she did not confess to the robbery and give them the names of her accomplices," Kazav said.

After hours of being beating, the woman finally confessed, asked for a phone, and called her daughter and one of the accomplices to tell them what had happened and asked them to return their shares of the money, which totaled some NIS 430,000.

While the neighbor was left tied up in the building, the man met the daughter and accomplice in two separate locations and was given the money. Only then did he free his neighbor.

The next day the man and his friends continued to pursue the remainder of the sum, as the neighbor had revealed the name of a second accomplice. After learning that the second accomplice's wife had just given birth in Jerusalem at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem.

The three men headed for the hospital's maternity ward. When the accomplice could not be found, they told the wife they would hurt her husband if he did not return his share of the stolen money.

"After they had left the maternity ward, the two friends quarreled over whether it was right to threaten a women who had just given birth. In the wake of the quarrel, police were called to the hospital, but the men managed to escape prior to their arrival."

When the husband of the new mother learned that the group had threatened him and his wife, he and a third accomplice agreed to meet with the man they had robbed. Following a long negotiation, they returned an additional NIS 280 million, as well as a car that one of the thieves had purchased a day after the robbery.

Meanwhile, the neighbor who had been tortured submitted a complaint to the police about her kidnapping. In the aftermath, all four robbers as well as the three vigilantes were arrested and questioned.

The robbers explained that they had managed to steal a key to the house and copy it, which was why there had been no signs of breaking and entering. They told police that they had been stunned by the amount of money in the house and had figured that they would only find a few hundred shekels.