This letter also indicates that the connection attributed to the instigator is focused on the fact that cryptocurrency of illegitimate origin was transferred to the wallet.
- At his request, Crystal Intelligence, a company that conducts legal and risk checks of crypto transactions using blockchain tools, examined the account and conducted an opinion according to which there is no suspicion of suspicious or illegal transactions by the appellant, and that the transactions in it are at a "green risk level."
- On the merits, the appellant reiterated his presentation of his business, adding that he has been holding a wallet since December 2024, and that all the funds in it are his personal capital, for which full tax was duly paid in Ukraine, as he had previously proved to the bank where they were held before they were transferred to the digital wallet. The appellant also described the details of the purchases of the tokens in the wallet (including the dates and identity of the sellers). A total of approximately 3,700,000 USDT was received in the wallet after the blocking was carried out, and therefore cannot be grounds for blocking. Therefore, as a proportionate remedy, the trial court should have ordered the cancellation of the freezing of these tokens.
- With regard to the decision of the trial court, the appellant reiterated his claim that it is not related to the criminal offenses mentioned in the decision, and added that the description of the matter as far as it relates is based on a misunderstanding of the crypto world, in which money is not transferred but tokens, and in any case there is no "money axis". The possibility that the stuken that the appellant received lawfully was connected to the commission of an offense in the past is no different from the fact that a note that draws a customer at an ATM was connected to the offense in the past, and this is not a reason for freezing the particular account or transfer. The appellant complained about his definition as a 'suspect', and added that he was not given any opportunity to deal with the suspicion.
He also complained about the trial court's ruling that it acted "with the aim of disguising and obscuring the traces of the stolen funds," since all the transactions carried out on the TRON network with USDT tokens are visible to anyone, and no transaction can be disguised. Even the trial court's determination that Tether froze the account in the wallet as "a wallet used to commit fraud and money laundering offenses", and even its determination that it was a wallet for storing fraudulent funds, are not at all founded. For even according to the Respondent's argument, this is at most a freeze for the purpose of examination, and the examination did not yield any negative finding in his case.
- Contrary to the trial court's ruling, he did not claim that there were 14,000 transfers in his wallet, but only that before he purchased the tokens and before they were transferred to his wallet, thousands of transfers were made in the wallets of the merchants from which they were purchased, and therefore it is not possible to attribute to him a defect that occurred, insofar as it occurred, prior to his purchase of the tokens.
- Beyond this, the appellant argued that the Israel Police had no authority to contact him in Ukraine or to carry out investigative actions in his case, or to seize his property in Ukraine, and that it should have acted in accordance with the provisions of the Mutual Assistance between States Law, within which he was able to protect his rights.
According to him, presenting the respondent's reference to Tether as "voluntary" without presenting the full correspondence is liable to be misleading. The Israel Police is not "an international sheriff who can do whatever he wants." The respondent's modus operandi is a "blatant contempt for the Ukrainian law enforcement authorities", who conducted much more stringent checks in order to certify him as a supplier by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
- The Respondent also reiterated its arguments, and these are the main points:
- The dispute between her and the appellant is not regarding the dates or scope of the transfers, but rather "the interpretation concerning you and your involvement in the network of fraudulent wallets", about which she submitted a confidential report containing investigative materials.
- Some of the transfer documents submitted by the appellant are illegible and all of them were submitted without verification.
- The appellant's ownership of the wallet was not proven, especially since the respondent received three (3) requests from different evacuees claiming ownership of the wallet.
- As for the seizure itself, she claimed that Tether froze the tokens at the request of the Israel Police, "and following the freeze, the company was also served with a seizure order signed by an authorized court."
- The opinion of the private company hired by the appellant has no weight, since it did not have all the investigative materials in the file.
- The appellant does not comply with the rules of law since the affidavit he submitted is not signed, and he did not present himself for cross-examination as required.
- As to the claim of authority, the respondent argued as follows:
"16. ... The Respondent's application to Tether on the voluntary level and without any attempt to apply the judicial order in an extraterritorial manner (since being a foreign corporation it is not bound by the instructions of the Israeli court).