The preparations made in advance, and the mysterious call to the consulate: behind the escape plan of Meli and Liel
The mother and daughter planned the escape for a month, covered their tracks, and deleted location data, according to an Israel Police investigation. A source familiar with the details told N12: the debt amount is not high, the motive is still unknown. During the journey, Meli called the consulate in Vienna, but the call was not answered.
The findings of the Israel Police investigation conducted overnight (between Friday and Saturday), since the location of Meli and Liel Yahalomi, revealed that the mother and daughter planned their escape for about a month, apparently as early as last July. As part of the preparations, the two covered their tracks and equipped themselves with additional phones with unidentified numbers. In addition, they deleted from their devices applications that allow for digital tracking and location.
The investigation also revealed that the two have a financial debt at the bank, but a source familiar with the details clarified to N12 that it is not a high amount, and that the overall picture has not yet been clarified. The motive that led to the extreme step by the mother and daughter, and to a complete severance of contact with the rest of the family members, is still unknown.
During the escape journey, it was identified that Meli dialed the consulate in Vienna once a few days ago, but the call was not answered and the reason for the attempt to contact is unclear. Later, the two boarded a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, with the assessment in the police being that they planned to continue from Argentina to another country in South America.
All the while, investigators from the police intelligence division managed the operation from a command center that operated around the clock, in coordination with representatives of the division deployed in Europe and South America. Immediately upon identifying their boarding the flight, the police representative who was in Mexico arrived at the airport in Argentina, waited for their landing, and updated the local police. The forces continuously tracked the movements of the mother and daughter, until the decision was made to arrest them inside the bus.
The search efforts were concentrated in close, multi-agency cooperation with the Europol organization, foreign police and security organizations, as well as international aviation and border authorities. During the days of the search, hundreds of focused investigative actions, technological tracking, and complex information cross-referencing were carried out, which eventually led to the exact location of the mother and her daughter.
After their location in Argentina, a police source explained that the police had estimated in advance that the mother and her daughter had left the country of their own free will and that no threats or pressures were being exerted on them, but there was an operational necessity to meet them face-to-face to verify this beyond any doubt.
According to the police statement, the global search efforts were managed under the direct guidance of the Police Commissioner, Rav-Nitzav Dani Levy, and were entrusted to the investigators of the Economic Warfare Unit in Lahav 433 in cooperation with the Intelligence Division of the Israel Police.
