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A few days ago, the Police Department’s 100 emergency hotline received a report that a Mercedes truck was stolen in Ashkelon. According to GPS settings, the truck had departed Ashkelon and was headed towards Be’er Sheva.

Police officers, together with the “Ituran” GPS service, succeeded in locating the stolen truck near the Meitar security checkpoint. The suspect, a 25-year-old man, was driving the vehicle. Initial investigations found that the suspect had not only stolen the truck, but he was also driving the vehicle even though his license was revoked for a period of several years.

Following his arrest, the suspect was taken for questioning, where he claimed that he had simply been asked by another man to transfer a “Bobcat” utility work machine in the truck’s cargo hold, in exchange for 500 shekels.

During an additional questioning session, other details regarding the case were presented to the suspect by Ashkelon police officers. In response, the suspect said that he was prepared for his cell phone to be examined, in order to strengthen and support his version of events.

However, the suspect seemingly forgot that he had installed an application to record cellular conversations on his device. All that was left was for the police investigators to listen to the phone conversations recorded on the suspect’s device from the moment he stole the truck until he was taken into police custody.

The app's recordings revealed that the suspect spoke of the potential risk of being inspected at the security checkpoint and decided to drive the truck towards the Meitar security checkpoint. In addition, photographs of the stolen truck were found on the suspect’s phone.

The suspect’s remand was extended. He will be formally indicted in the next few days.