A man in his 40s was killed on Sunday when a Hummer exploded in north Tel Aviv at the corner of Dvora Haneviya and Moshe Sneh Streets.
The victim, who has been identified as Avner Mayo, a known associate of the Musli family who had been a witness against the underworld crime family in an ongoing trial.
Prosecutors will review the handling of what is one of the most prominent criminal cases being conducted by Tel Aviv prosecutors in their war on organized crime.
The case includes a long list of suspects and one state’s witnesses whose identity is barred from publication. Mayo was questioned in 2013 and linked one of the organization’s leaders to the murders of two criminals a year earlier.
Mayo had testified that a senior figure in the organization offered huge sums to whoever would do a “red-riding hood,” an underworld nickname for murder, on the two criminals who were ultimately killed.
Magen David Adom medic Eran Carmel who arrived at the scene of the explosion, said he found Mayo “lying on the ground.
He was conscious with serious wounds to his limbs and burns to his upper body.
We administered first aid in the field, applying a tourniquet and pain killers and an intensive care ambulance took him to hospital in serious condition.”
Mayo later died of his injuries.
The killing was the latest of a string of murders of witnesses against crime gangs in recent years.
The most recent previous case occurred about a month agao when state’s witneses Shai Bachar, 40, was killed in a car bombing in Hod Hasharon, before he could testify in Avi Rohan’s trial about suspicions that leaders of that crime group had been plotting to murder criminals of a rival gang.
Before that, in November 2013, the body of criminal Shimi Eno, described by police as a senior figure in the Musli crime family, was found in a lake in South Africa.
Eno was not a state’s witness or a part of that program, but police are investigating whether his murder may have been an attempt to persuade a person who was close to Eno against testifying as a state’s witness against other criminals.
A year beforehand, on July 12, 2012, David Hakak was shot and killed on a Jaffa street corner after testifying against several senior figures of the Rohan crime gang. Hakak, Hakak’s testimony had incriminated 15 suspects of an illegal gambling ring.
אבנר מאיו, עבריין מוכר למשטרה ואחד מעדי התביעה בתיק רצח נגד עבריינים מארגון הפשיעה של האחים מוסלי, הוא העבריין שחוסל היום בתל אביב, כך התירה המשטרה לפרסום.
מאיו הוא מעדי התביעה בתיק רצח נגד עבריינים מארגון הפשע של האחים מוסלי. במשטרה מעריכים שהוא חוסל על רקע עובדה זו. חיסולו של מאיו יקשה על הפרקליטות להביא להרשעה בתיק, אולם מאיו לא היה העד היחיד בתיק והוא נשען על עדים נוספים. הפגיעה היא בעיקר בתיקים עתידיים: עבריינים יהססו לשתף פעולה עם המשטרה והפרקליטות מחשש שגורל יהיה זהה.
העבריין נהרג הבוקר בפיצוץ מכוניתו ברחוב פנחס רוזן בצפון תל אביב. מאיו חולץ מהמכונית על ידי חבלן משטרה וקיבל טיפול רפואי ראשוני מצוות מגן דוד אדום שהגיע למקום. הוא פונה להמשך טיפול בבית החולים איכילוב בעיר, כשהוא סובל מחבלות בגפיו, אולם מת מפצעיו כעבור שעה קלה.
חובש מד”א ערן כרמל שהגיע למקום סיפר: “על הכביש שכב גבר בשנות ה-40 כשהוא בהכרה עם חבלות קשות בגפיים וכוויות בפלג גופו העליון. הענקנו לו טיפול רפואי ראשוני בשטח, שכלל הנחת חסמי עורקים ומשככי כאבים, ובהמשך הוא פונה בניידת טיפול נמרץ לבית החולים”.
A Man killed in a criminal underworld car-bombing in Tel Aviv on Sunday morning was identified as Avner Mayo, a figure known to police who had reportedly run afoul of two major organized crime families by turning state witness.
It was the second killing of people connected to the state witness program within a week.
Mayo’s car, a white Hummer, went up in flames on the corner of Devora HaNeviah and Moshe Sneh streets in the Ramot Tzahala neighborhood of Tel Aviv Sunday morning.
A police sapper who happened to be nearby pulled Mayo out of the flaming wreckage, but he died of his injuries after being rushed to a hospital.
Mayo, in his 40s, was set to testify as a state witness in a 2012 double-murder trial involving members of the Alperon crime family. Last year he was involved in bringing charges against leaders of the Musli crime organization which claimed he owed them money, Channel 2 reported.
Last week an Israeli woman, 30, was shot dead in front of her three young children on Beersheba’s Jerusalem Boulevard in a criminal underworld slaying.
Police said the victim was the wife of an imprisoned member of a criminal organization who testified against the organization. In October, an indictment was filed against the husband for sending threatening messages to his wife.
Police say they are exploring the possibility that the killing was an act of revenge against the husband, as well as the possibility that the husband ordered the shooting.
There have been several underworld car bombings in Tel Aviv and surrounding cities in the last several years raising fears among an Israeli populace already on edge due to a spate of terror attacks.
In January, three people were injured, two of them seriously, when a car exploded and burst into flames in a Tel Aviv suburb in a suspected underworld hit attempt. The injured included Ben Cohen, a senior figure in the crime organization headed by Amir Mulner, as well as his personal security guard. Two passersby were also lightly hurt in the blast, which rocked roads near the adjacent Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
During 2015 police made a series of arrests involving dozens of members of crime organizations across the country in what was described as one of the biggest crackdowns on organized crime in Israeli history.