"The wife's counsel: Where did you pay the $10 million from? [The monetary fine in the United States - Y.S.]?
The Man: At Citibank, we had a bank account in Wells Fargo, There were bank accounts in England, there were, there were several bank accounts, yes.
The wife's counsel: So give me the account numbers and bank accounts From which you paid between 2007 and 2010 And it seems, it seems to everyone.
.....
The wife's counsel: Wells Fargo In which A branch?
The Man: I don't remember the branch.
The wife's counsel: Don't remember the branch?
The Man: Nope.
The wife's counsel: In which city?
The Man: Or New York or California.
The wife's counsel: Or New York or California?
The Man: Yes.
The wife's counsel: You don't remember the street or the branch, nothing?
The Man: The street? I don't usually go to the bank. No, I don't remember the street" (See the minutes of the hearing of November 18, 2020, pp. 634, paras. 5-8 and 640, paras. 11-21, emphases from the source).
- The manner in which the man managed the family property during the marriage of the parties also testifies to his great expertise and sophistication in the field of creating financial structures, while concealing his identity as the sole controlling shareholder thereof. The woman was able to demonstrate, through an accumulation of documents combined with the testimony of the man and witnesses on his behalf, his method of operation - and this is this:
- The person gives an order to someone on his behalf to establish a trust and serve as the trustee settlor (hereinafter: the creator of the trust), the person or company that establishes the trust, defines its terms and transfers property to it for the benefit of the beneficiaries. For example, the late Mr. Amos, a close family member of the man on his father's side for many years, held this position in a number of the man's loyalties. The source of the funds transferred to the trust is a remuneration to which the person is entitled for making business investments for that party or third parties who in turn establish the trust. In other words, this is a wage that is not reported to the tax authorities and is thus hidden from their eyes. The trusts are established abroad in countries known as recognized tax havens, such as the British Channel Islands (Guernsey and Jersey) and Belize in the Caribbean.
- After establishing a trust, the man injects money into it. The role of trusts, as defined in their founding documents, is to carry out transactions with the funds for the benefit of the beneficiaries (i.e., the man, the woman and their children), when for reasons of avoiding paying tax, at the time of the establishment of the trusts, the beneficiaries are various charitable foundations, and then the man or anyone on his behalf changes the identity of the beneficiaries to the name of the man, the woman and their children (see Appendix 87 to the wife's summaries in this regard).
Changing the identity of such beneficiaries is carried out by means of a "letter of wishes" drawn up by the trustee for the person. A wish letter is "a document in which the creator expresses his desire in relation to the manner in which the trust property is managed by the trustee. The 'wish letter', which is entrusted to the trustee, has no legal validity, and the trustee can ostensibly ignore its provisions. However, in practice, the trustees tend to take into account the content of the document" (see Alon Kaplan, Trust in Israel: Halakha Ma'mal, p. 26, Halachot Publishing, 500Another Appeal, 2017).
- These trusts in turn establish subsidiaries or a chain of subsidiaries, each of which receives a portion of the trust funds that established them - in a way that blurs the line between each trust and the person.
- The man acts as an investment advisor to the trust's subsidiaries (and in some cases, as a "protector" of the trust itself) and the subsidiaries invest the funds they received from the trust in accordance with his instructions. The profits generated are deposited in the person's accounts (as discussed below) and/or in joint accounts on behalf of the subsidiaries.
- The man is able to navigate the system of trusts he has established and act freely in accordance with his changing needs, whether through his powers as the protector of the trust or by means of "wishes letters" for trusts on behalf of the creator (who, as noted, does the man's word like a family member), and this is discussed at length below.
- This is how the method works to disguise the manner in which the money is deposited by the man and he is the one who controls it and benefits from it (see paragraphs 132-138 of the man's main testimony affidavit; Ms. Veronica's interrogation in the transcript of the hearing of December 15, 2021, pp. 1040, paras. 8-16; Appendices 23 and 91 of the woman's summaries, Appendices 64, 83, 85-88 to the woman's summaries).
- Take an example to illustrate the man's use of his powers as a trustee, as demonstrated by the woman on the man's conduct within and through the Alaska Foundation Trust, in which he serves as the "Protector". According to the language of the trust agreement itself, the man as the guardian of the trust has the sole authority to appoint new trustees or to dismiss existing trustees (see paragraph 14.7 of the trust agreement, Appendix 36 to the woman's summaries, emphasis added):
"Not withstanding any other provision of this settlement, the protector in office at any time shall have full and understanding power to […] remove a Trustee or trustees of a trust hereunder from office and appoint a successor trustee or trustees by written instrument delivered by the protector to any trustee of, or to any adult person beneficiary, interested in the trust […]"