Negev resident charged with selling stolen cars and then stealing them back
Tarek Al-Abid (31) from Kuseife has been charged with forging documents and impersonating others to sell stolen vehicles as legal. The fraud continued after the sale, as he would arrange for the vehicles to be stolen again and transferred to the Palestinian Authority.
The State Attorney's Office filed an indictment today, Wednesday, against 31-year-old Tarek Al-Abid from Kuseife, who sold stolen vehicles while presenting them as legal, only to steal them back and transfer them to the territories of the Palestinian Authority.
The indictment charges him with obtaining property by deception under aggravating circumstances, impersonating another person, using forged documents, vehicle theft, forging vehicle-related documents, altering vehicle identification, and trading in stolen vehicles.
According to the indictment filed at the Be'er Sheva District Court by Adv. Giora Hazan of the Southern District Attorney's Office, Al-Abid obtained stolen vehicles, located identical models offered for sale, and performed fraudulent ownership transfers on the legal vehicles using forged documents and impersonation. He then matched the stolen vehicle's details to the legal ones and sold them to third parties. After the transaction, Al-Abid allegedly arranged for the sold vehicle to be stolen and transferred to the Palestinian Authority to generate further profit and conceal the fraud.
Under the first count, the defendant forged an identity card by using another person's details with his own photograph. Using this and other forged documents, he performed a false ownership transfer on a Toyota Corolla sold online. He then altered the stolen vehicle's identification to match the original, advertised it on Facebook, and sold it to two brothers from Lod for 78,500 shekels in cash. Later, he sent an accomplice to steal the vehicle using a pre-installed GPS tracker. The car was intercepted at the Meitar checkpoint.
According to the second count, the defendant attempted the same scheme with a Jeep Wrangler, fraudulently transferring ownership to his own name without the owners' consent. The plan was thwarted when the legal owner discovered the transfer and filed a police complaint.
