Israeli mafia seek revenge for top mobster’s death

The Israeli government has ordered an immediate crackdown on organised crime following the assassination in broad daylight of one of the country's most notorious mobsters. Detectives from a special task force modelled on the FBI have been told to hunt down the killers of Ya'acov Alperon (pictured with his son Dror), whose car was blown up in downtown Tel-Aviv last week, before his extended crime family extracts its own bloody revenge. "This guy was the top of the top in the underworld," said a police spokesman. "We're taking the possibility of repercussions very seriously."

To judge by Alperon's funeral, attended by an array of gangland "faces" from all over Israel, the police will have to move fast. At the graveside, one of his sons - briefly released from jail where he was facing extortion charges - vowed not to rest until those responsible

were also in the ground. "We'll find my father's murderer and send him to God," he said. "We'll smash his balls and cut off his arms, his legs and his head."

A former boxer turned enforcer in the protection and prostitution rackets, Alperon liked to claim that he had no enemies, but he had survived at least one previous attempt to kill him with a car bomb and was suspected of organising several underworld hits. Often seen in public sporting a stylish black fedora and sunglasses, he was not averse to the right kind of personal publicity, once inviting an Israeli TV crew to interview him and his wife - an elegant blonde who boasts a PhD in philosophy - at their luxurious home.

But close up Alperon was deeply scary, with a hair-trigger temper: through an intermediary, I was once introduced to him in a Tel-Aviv spieler (gambling club) that he controlled. Surrounded by heavies, he stood me a drink but then something I said upset him and he told me to fuck off before I got hurt. One eminent Israeli criminologist told Time magazine that Alperon and his like were "the most primitive type", wedded to extreme violence. His older brother, Nissim, is said to have survived nine attempts by rivals to rub him out.

The influx of Russian Jews in the 1990s saw a ruthless new breed of gangsters

The influx of Russian Jews during the 1990s brought an equally ruthless new breed of gangsters to Israel, leading to turf wars being settled with bursts of automatic gunfire in crowded cafes and bars and military explosives stolen and sold on by soldiers used for bombings in public places. A few months ago, Margarita Lautin, a 31-year-old mother of two, died after a gunman on a motorcycle opened fire on a group of known criminals who were lunching at an adjacent table in a popular beachside restaurant.

With the public now braced for a new round of gang warfare, the words of David Ben Gurion, Israel's founding father and first prime minister, spring to mind. Israel would only become a normal country, he observed, when there were "Jewish criminals and Jewish prostitutes".