Just Like The Sopranos, But With Thicker Chest Hair

A known Israeli mobster, Yaakov Alperon, was assassinated on Monday in Tel Aviv.  Alperon’s car blew up, killing him and lightly wounding three bystanders.  At his funeral on Tuesday one of Alperon’s sons reportedly said, “I will send back that person to God…He won’t have a grave because I’ll cut off his hands, head, and body.”  Officially the Alperon family put out a statement that they won’t retaliate for the murder, but police sources seem to think otherwise.

If you think that’s scary, check out what some photographers who were sent to cover the funeral had to say:

“It was just too dangerous,” one photographer told Ynet. “All sorts of criminals approached us and threatened us not to dare raise our cameras…they threatened us while police officers and Prison Service staff were watching and doing nothing.”

Another photographer told Ynet some funeral participants stoned photojournalists.

“They threatened all of us and said they would break our cameras if we take them out of our bags,” he said. “Later came the shoves and more threats….I wasn’t that scared even when I served in Lebanon.”

That’s pretty hardcore.  I knew that the Russian mafia was really active in Israel, but I didn’t know Israel had its own organized crime problem.  And something tells me that most of these guys are in it for different reasons than the Jewish gangsters you tend to hear about in association with the American Mob in the 20s and 30s.  Check out our article on Jewish gangsters and stay tuned.  If the Alperon family and the Ramat Amidar gang keep at it, we may have to write a new article.