Retired police commander Avi Weiss says a huge Israeli police data repository, containing information on every citizen, disappeared after being transferred to the defunct startup Fifth Dimension. In an interview with Channel 7, he said the case is now expected to be investigated, after years in which, he argues, only a narrow part of the affair was examined.
Weiss said Fifth Dimension operated from 2014 to 2018, collapsed after suspicion involving its main Russian investor, and was granted a no-bid exemption by then police chief Roni Alsheikh and his team. According to Weiss, the company was supposed to turn police cyber intelligence, including wiretaps, into an early AI-based system for faster data collection on Israeli residents. He said it received a 4 million shekel pilot payment toward a planned 50 million shekel deal, while police also funded hardware and a facility.
He claimed the company, led by chairman Benny Gantz and president Ram Ben-Barak, with advice from Dudi Cohen and Bentzi Sau and others, received all of the police data during the pilot, although the pilot failed and that failure was concealed. Weiss described four separate matters in the affair, including the no-bid exemption, the transfer of the data, a Fifth Dimension deal with Qatar mediated by former U.S. general John Allen, and the unfulfilled 50 million shekel contract after the company went bankrupt.
Weiss said the police denied the claims last year and the cases were closed. He said that in late 2025 he obtained a presentation shown to the police chief and senior commanders, which, in his view, proves the transfer. The presentation indicated the data was held at a Border Police site in Yehudai near the Israel Police headquarters in Jerusalem and moved over fiber optic cables about 3 to 4 kilometers. Weiss said he filed a complaint in January and, after three months, the Police Internal Investigations Department declined to open a probe for lack of public interest.
He said he later received the file, which contained his complaint and a note from a national service volunteer saying she tried to call him and got no answer. Weiss called that explanation absurd, noting that on the same day he filed the complaint he also gave another one and was summoned to testify at the department, so police should have known where he was. He said acting head of the department has now accepted his appeal and agreed to open an investigation, but only after legislation to establish a new internal investigations body advances. That bill is being promoted by MKs Tzvika Saada and Simcha Rothman together with Justice Minister Yariv Levin. Weiss said if the Supreme Court does not block the law, an inquiry may finally begin.
