Former Nazareth mayor, mob boss among those charged with stealing from city

The former mayor of Nazareth, the head of a powerful crime family and 10 other defendants are accused in court of embezzling millions of shekels from the municipality’s coffers over the course of a decade.

The indictments filed in the Nazareth District Court constitute a major blow to one of Israel’s most notorious mafia-style crime syndicates, thought to be one of the main forces driving a rampant wave of violent crime in Arab society.

Ali Salam, Nazareth’s ex-mayor, is charged with overseeing the transfer of some NIS 61 million ($20 million) to the Bakri crime family from 2015 to 2025, via a front, a private security service called Shomrei HaGalil.

The company was given contracts by the municipality, while Salam and his associates in the municipality used false invoices and inflated working hours to transfer the large sums of money to Samir Bakri, the head of the crime family, and his accomplices.

Last year, the mayor allegedly tried to back out of the scheme and suspend payments to the Bakri family, but they wouldn’t allow it, and began to make threats against Salam and his son.

The investigation was launched after one of the many victims of the Bakri family’s alleged extortion contacted police. He was forced to sell his home and ultimately repay his blackmailers via phony invoices from four companies that provided him no services, which also served as fronts for the crime syndicate, prosecutors say.

The defendants are indicted in the Nazareth District on a litany of charges, among them fraud, breach of trust, bribery, money laundering and extortion.

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