He said police have so far been unable to positively identify Eran.

“We are still determining if he’s real. The police need to investigate further,” he said at a special press conference in Bukit Aman here.

Razarudin was responding to a report by The Times of Israel, which claimed that the Israeli man in custody was associated with the criminal group known as the Musli Brothers.

The Israeli man was identified in the report as Shalom Avitan. According to the report, Avitan is believed to have come to Malaysia to kill the leader of a rival criminal group.

The report said both groups had been involved in violent feuds for months, and that Avitan’s home in Tel Aviv had been the target of a grenade attack by Eran’s associates in mid-March.

Reports by Israeli media previously stated that Eran is the son of Eitan Haya, the leader of a criminal group in the country. In 2016, Eitan was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a court in Tel Aviv.

Eitan, also called the “Israeli Godfather”, had been convicted for extortion and money laundering.

Before returning to Israel in 2004, after years of living in the United States, Eitan reportedly led an Israeli mafia crime group in New York, and had served 15 years in prison in the US for murder.

Israeli media reports stated that Eran also ran a cryptocurrency fraud scam in South Africa.

On Wednesday, police arrested an Israeli man with six pistols and 200 rounds of ammunition at a hotel in Jalan Ampang here.

The 36-year-old had entered the country through KLIA on March 12, using a French passport.