Israeli police are investigating how hundreds of millions of shekels in cash ended up in Jordan

Israeli police are investigating a mechanism in which large sums of shekels were transported from Jordan to Israel, exchanged in Israel for dollars, which were returned back to Jordan.

As part of an investigation into suspicions of laundering illegal capital and financing terrorism, 14 people were detained, including people associated with the Northern faction of the Islamic Movement.

According to the police, the money was transported from Jordan to Israel legally, with a declaration at customs. Each time it was about a suitcase with 1-2 million shekels in cash. The exchange was carried out with a licensed Israeli money changer.

According to the head of the department for combating economic crime, Kobi Kadosh, “the police are at the initial stage of an open investigation and continue to establish all the circumstances and monitor the route of the money.”

At this stage, investigators cannot explain where hundreds of millions of shekels in cash came from the Jordanian exchange office. It is also unknown where the dollars that left Israel back to Jordan were sent, and whether the Jordanian exchange office is just a channel for laundering shekels or the main player in whose interests the detainees acted.

During searches of houses and exchange offices, police seized gold and jewelry worth about seven million shekels, cash in various currencies worth two million shekels, and also froze 22 million shekels in the bank accounts of the detainees and seven properties. At the end of the interrogations, all suspects were released home.

The investigation is focused on charges within Israeli jurisdiction: money laundering, operating a financial services provider without a license, aggravated obtaining property by false pretence, and financing terrorism.