Targeted acts of fraud have been carried out in recent days against business owners in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of the city of Ashdod.
According to a report on the Ashdods website, a gang of teenagers, operating systematically in the city, comes to businesses, purchases products - and pays with money that is later revealed to be counterfeit.
This is a regular pattern of action in which the boys serve as messengers for distributing counterfeit money - mainly in the third and seventh quarters.
However, the phenomenon does not stop with fraud alone: in some cases, when business owners who discovered the scam tried to put the boys in their place, saying that the money was counterfeit - they found themselves attacked with physical violence.
The police say that the incident is familiar to them, and that intelligence and operational activity is now also focused on trying to locate the operators behind those boys - and who run the money counterfeiting network.
Business owners throughout the city are called to increase vigilance, carefully check the bills and coins received at the cash register, and if necessary, contact the police hotline immediately.
