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The South African Police Service has confirmed that the Israeli mafia exists in South Africa
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November 11, 2003, 08:30
The South African Police Service has confirmed that the Israeli mafia exists in South Africa and is very active in the northern surbubs of Johannesburg. This follows rumours that Johannesburg socialite Hazel Crane's murder yesterday, and that of her husband diamond dealer, Shai Avissar, in 1999 are the works of the mafia.
"It most definitely exists, there is no doubt about that," Chris Wilken, the Johannesburg Police Senior Superintendent, said today. "I mean it's coming way back, if you take the murder of Shai Avissar." Wilken said the mafia was involved in all sorts of shady activities including diamond smuggling, drug peddling, money laundering etc. "They are quite busy in the northern surbubs of Johannesburg." "I think there were three or four murders in particular in that area," Wilken said.
Crane, a close friend of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, was gunned down in the northern Johannesburg suburb of Athol-Oaklands yesterday. She was on her way to the Johannesburg High Court to testify in the jurisdiction hearing of Israeli diamond dealer and alleged mafia member Lior Saat (33), accused of murdering her husband.
Avissar, an alleged mafia godfather himself, was last seen alive at a fast-food outlet in Norwood. In January 2000 his battered body was found by police in a shallow grave on a smallholding in Erasmia, Pretoria.
Saat is alleged to have bludgeoned Avissar to death in October 1999, in Sunninghill, east of Johannesburg. He appeared in court yesterday despite the fact that a key witnesses in his trial had been eliminated. An Israeli national, Saat is challenging the jurisdiction of the South African courts to try him. He claims he was abducted from the Mozambican border and brought to South Africa illegally.
Wilken said two more suspects in the Avissar murder, also believed to be with the Israeli mafia, left the country after the incident. He said the latest developments require that they look at the "whole thing from the beginning again".
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