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Rabat – Morocco has agreed to extradite two “dangerous” criminals back to Israel through Spain, given its absence of diplomatic relations with Israel.
Police officials from Israel and Morocco recently reached an agreement to extradite Golan Avitan and Chiko (Moshe) Beit Adah, members of Israeli organized crime families who fled to Morocco to escape justice.
During a week-long visit to Israel, an envoy of Moroccan police officials met with their Israeli counterparts to coordinate the extradition, according to The Jerusalem Post, citing Israeli outlet Mako.
Golan Avitan
Moroccan police arrested Golan Avitan in 2019. He was one of the head criminals in Israel’s Abergil’s crime family.
Avitan was also a suspect in Case 512, an organized crime investigation in Israel that began in May 2015. It resulted in the arrest of some 50 mobsters for murder, drug trafficking, conspiracy, and money laundering, among other crimes. Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino dubbed Case 512 “the most significant organized crime affair in the history of the Israel Police.”
Avitan was a target because he provided the remotes to activate explosives in an attack on a building in 2003 in Tel Aviv. He sought to take out Zev Rozenstein, an enemy of the Abergil crime family. The attack killed three and wounded 20.
He was charged with three counts of murder for the crime. However, Avitan’s attorney was able to lower his sentence and eventually have him released to house arrest.
In 2018, Avitan managed to escape house arrest by claiming he needed to see a dentist. He took a yacht from Ashkelon to Cyprus and then to Spain, before ending up in Morocco.
Avitan illegally acquired Moroccan citizenship for himself and his wife through the document forging network of Chiko (Moshe) Beit Adah, the second criminal Morocco is set to extradite to Israel.
Chiko (Moshe) Beit Adah
After Avitan and his wife obtained the forged citizenship documents, Moroccan police discovered their fraud and cracked down on Beit Adah’s forgery network.
In March 2019, members of Morocco’s National Brigade of Judicial Police (BNPJ) arrested ten people on suspicion of having links to the forgery network. The group was active in falsifying official documents in order to grant Moroccan citizenship.
Along with Beit Adah, the arrested suspects included three police officers, a public officer, an administrative attache, and a commercial agent from a travel agency.
Beit Adah falsified contracts to help non-Moroccan Israelis like Avitan obtain false evidence to apply for Morocco’s civil register. The crime boss would then apply for authorization to register civil status and obtain false birth certificates for Jewish people.
He also procured Moroccan passports for illegitimate purposes for his clients, charging between $5,000 and $7,000, according to March 2019 police reports.
Beit Adah was also a suspect in Israel’s Case 512 for violence and drug charges.
Morocco will revoke the citizenship of both Beit Adah and Avitan.
