The search that gripped—and duped—a nation

When Israel Police representative in Latin America Walter Alejandro Kogan boarded a bus in Argentina and approached Mali Yahalomi, 50, and her daughter Liel, 23, he didn’t demand to know why they’d caused an international search operation.

Nor did he lecture them about the resources that had been expended trying to locate them. Instead, he introduced himself and told them, politely, that everyone had been very worried about them.

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Some of us would’ve been less delicate, to put it mildly.

For a full week, Israeli and foreign authorities had been trying to determine what had happened to the two women after they disappeared in Europe while supposedly on vacation. Their families had been frantic. Their employers had been left wondering what had happened. And all Israelis initially feared that the duo had fallen victim to a terrorist attack, abduction or other forms of foul play.

Each scenario, given the current climate, with jihadists and fellow-traveler antisemites acting out their hatred on a daily basis, appeared to be plausible. As it turned out, however, none of the above applied.

Mali and Liel were neither missing nor endangered. They’d apparently decided to leave their lives behind—for reasons about which speculation is rampant—and had gone to considerable lengths to make sure that nobody knew where they were. Including Mali’s siblings, former husband and son.

The saga began on Friday, Aug. 7, when the mother and daughter from the Modi’in area were in Vienna after traveling from Tel Aviv to Prague. They’d remained in contact with relatives, even sending a smiling selfie, but communication subsequently ceased.

Because the two are Orthodox Jews who observe Shabbat, their family didn’t expect to hear from them until Saturday night. But when they couldn’t be reached after that, panic set in, particularly when they never boarded their scheduled return flight to Israel.

The investigation therefore expanded rapidly. The Israeli embassy in Vienna issued an appeal for information, while Austrian police and Israeli counterparts began working together to trace the women’s movements. The Israel Police’s Lahav 433 and Intelligence Division became involved, operating at home and abroad in cooperation with Europol and other foreign law-enforcement agencies.

Meanwhile, the women’s behavior provided an increasingly unusual set of clues. Among these was the fact that they checked out of their lodgings, with their luggage in tow, on Shabbat.

The significance of this was that it was out of character for them, and deviations from someone’s conduct and long-established routine are always relevant to investigations of this sort.

But this was only one of the anomalies of the case.

According to reports published after the women were located, they’d apparently been planning their “escape” for about a month. Police allegedly found evidence that they’d consulted Google’s Gemini chatbot about how to pull off the maneuver without being traced; how to purchase an unidentifiable phone; and how to disable applications from devices that could detect their whereabouts.

More disturbing was their use of material designed to mislead their nearest and dearest. For example, they sent out a video they’d recorded in Vienna after leaving, to create the false impression that they were still there. That’s when they got rid of their original phones and continued moving.

As it became clear to police that the women had acted voluntarily, the department obtained a gag order on the inquiry, so as not to tip them off and cause them to change their plotted course. They remained the focus of the probe until found safe and sound on Aug. 14 on a bus in Buenos Aires.

Israel Police spokesman Aryeh Doron said of the encounter that it was “emotional,” with the women hugging Kogan. He deserved the embrace, but they certainly didn’t.

Still, because they weren’t under suspicion of having committed a criminal offense, they were questioned and released. That in itself is a bit odd.

Mali and Liel had every right to abandon loved ones and seek a fresh start, though doing so isn’t very honorable or empathic. But orchestrating a wild goose chase should have consequences, including legal ones.

At the very minimum, they should reimburse every shekel and euro spent as a result of their scheme. Their family at least had the decency to announce that the money raised through crowdfunding to assist in the hunt (some 260,000 shekels, the equivalent of approximately $88,000) would be returned.

Questions remain, which will or won’t be answered at some stage. What isn’t debatable is that while Mali and Liel Yahalomi are off in pursuit of a fantasy hideout, they ought to be hiding their heads in shame.

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