Crime boss Alperon, who survived nine assassination attempts, dies at 68

Crime family boss Nissim Alperon passed away on Saturday at the age of 68, after a long battle with cancer.

Together with his brother Yaakov, Alperon managed the business of the Alperon crime family, one of the prominent crime families in Israel. His brother was killed in November 2008 after an explosive device was attached to his car and exploded. To this day, those responsible for the assassination have not been caught.

Alperon himself survived many assassinations attempts over the years.

In 2013, nine people were injured in a large explosion that occurred in a vehicle in which he was traveling near the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv. Three of them were slightly injured, while the other six were seriously injured. Alperon himself succeeded in escaping from the site.

Alperon's lawyer says the crime boss left the criminal world a long time ago

In the investigation of the explosion, it was estimated that this was another assassination attempt - ninth in number - of Alperon. His lawyer, Moshe Yohai said: "Alperon left the criminal world a long time ago and we don't know of any enemies trying to harm him."

A year before that attempt, in 2012, Alperon survived an eighth assassination attempt aimed at him, in which an explosion took place near his jeep in Ramat Gan. As a result of the explosion, his security guard was slightly injured. Alperon himself was not injured in the explosion. The car sustained minor damage and windows of nearby businesses were shattered.

In 2015, Alperon was arrested while attempting to flee the country at Ben-Gurion Airport as he was a suspect in a 2002 murder in Prague that precipitated numerous gang-related murders throughout Israel, but he was later freed after police failed to find sufficient evidence. The arrest was conducted as part of a widescale operation against organized crime called "Case 512."

In 2020, Nissim Alperon, the head of a large mob family, led his private army into a Palestinian city just to get the stolen horse back.

Without consulting the IDF, Alperon led a convoy of ten vehicles into Qalqilya under Palestinian control in the West Bank east of Kfar Saba, to retrieve the horse, according to Channel 13. 

Shalom Zohar, a friend of Alperon's, told Channel 13 at the time that "this horse was getting out of there even if 200 or even 300 Israelis had to enter [the town]. Nissim would make sure that they would go in and get the horse out. This is a horse that he raised like a baby."

While they waited for the horse, the mobsters sat with the Palestinian police and had some kanafeh (a traditional sweet pastry) and sweets.

After being in the village for several hours, Zohar, a businessman from Samaria and the one responsible for the negotiations received a phone call from the officers in the PA and was told to wait at the entrance to Qalqilya, according to Channel 13. The horse was eventually brought to the mobsters and they left the area and returned home.

Who are the Alperon's?

The Alperon family rose to fame in the late 70s, when they began running gambling parlors, nightclubs, extortion rackets and later bottle recycling rackets in the Tel Aviv area.

They became some of the most famous underworld figures in Israel. Yaakov was particularly well known and was featured with his wife, Ahuva, and children on an Israeli reality show, filmed partially in their Ra’anana home, shortly before he was killed in 2008 by a car bomb.

Ben Hartman contributed to this report.