Police arrested a lawyer and detained several other suspects Monday morning as part of an investigation into Social Equality Minister May Golan and her associates, who are suspected of fraud, illegally pocketing the ministry’s funds and other financial crimes.

Investigators have been probing the right-wing lawmaker for months, but Monday’s announcement marked the first time law enforcement went public with the case against her.

Officers planned to interrogate Golan as a suspect, the Kan public broadcaster reported, soon after a string of raids on the homes of the minister’s associates and the Social Equality Ministry in Jerusalem was announced by police.

But Golan threatened not to show up to the police interrogation, calling the string of arrests a “dirty move” motivated by politics.

Golan and her associates are suspected of fraud, misusing public funds for private purposes, creating fictitious positions in the Social Equality Ministry and concealing sources of funding. All this was done through the use of NGOs and government systems as a “tool for illegally extracting funds,” police said.

Golan, a right-wing firebrand who first gained public attention by campaigning against illegal migrants in her home neighborhood in south Tel Aviv, has denied the accusations. Her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding recent developments in the........

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