Four south Tel Aviv residents were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of assaulting and robbing African migrants in recent months.

Two police stations in south Tel Aviv had been receiving similar-sounding complaints from African migrants over the past several months, with the migrants saying they had been attacked by a gang of young men.

In some cases the attackers portrayed themselves as policemen, or other law enforcement officials, and demanded to see the victims’ identifying documents. In most of the cases the victims were brutally beaten - in one case a complainant was stabbed – and the victims robbed. The property stolen included bicycles, money, cell phones and other items.

When police realized there was a pattern to the attacks and that the description of the attackers was identical in many of the cases, the investigation was transferred to a special team, set up by the Yiftah District Police, that conducted an undercover investigation.

The police succeeded in identifying the suspects, documenting their activities and collecting evidence which indicated that the four were the alleged attackers.

Two of the suspects have confessed after being presented with the evidence. The other two are not cooperating with police.

The police were able to recover some of the stolen property and seized a car belonging to the father of one of the suspects, which had been described in one of the complaints as the getaway car.

The four were remanded by the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court until Sunday, with Judge Benny Sagi writing that the suspicions against them included “robbery, assault, stabbing and other crimes. The acts were serious, both in terms of their great violence and the victims who were chosen, who are weak victims.”