Goa Police to seek custody of Israeli national held in Uttarakhand

Panaji: A Goa Police team has been dispatched to Uttarakhand to take possession of an Israeli national, Yaniv Benaim alias Atala, who is wanted in Goa in connection with an assault case and was allegedly trying to slip out of the country into Nepal, along the Uttarakhand border, a police officer said on Wednesday.

Atala was arrested by Uttarakhand Police after immigration officials in the northern state nabbed him while he was trying to allegedly smuggle himself into Nepal via the border district in Champawat in Uttarakhand late on Tuesday. 

He was formally arrested by the Uttarakhand Police under section 14 of the Foreigners Act, after they discovered that he had been staying in India for seven years without a valid visa.

"He is wanted in Goa in connection with an assault case which was registered under section 326 of the Indian Penal Code (grievous assault) at Anjuna police station. We have sent a team to Dehradun to take custody of the accused," a police officer said on condition of anonymity.

Atala first came into focus in 2009, after a video surfaced online, in which he boasted that his contacts in the police force helped him source drugs and narcotics substances, which he sold in the open market.

Atala was later arrested and his disclosures led to the eventual arrest of several police officials and helped unearth a police-politician drug mafia nexus in the coastal state in 2009.

After he was granted bail, Atala fled the country and was later extradited from Peru, after he was arrested by local authorities in 2011 for travelling without valid documents.

In 2014, Atala was arrested once again under Section 427 IPC (mischief) after he damaged a car which ran into a hoarding of a club which the Israeli national was allegedly operating in the beach village of Vagator in North Goa.