As to the operation of Ephraim Meir, in order for him to pose as a representative of the bank and confirm the authenticity of the transaction, it appears that this was the result of the planning of defendant 1, with the knowledge and full consent of defendant 3, who, as stated, mentioned the telephone numbers of Ephraim Meir, in the same document that he sent to the supplier's representative.
As I determined with regard to the third charge, there is no doubt in my view that the documents relating to the fourth charge were also stamped with a forged stamp of reference of the Arab Bank. The testimony of the bank representative, Twist"IV Naim Fadel, from which it is clear that this is not a stamp of the Arab Bank, is completely acceptable to me. The witness presented examples of bills of lading, on which the stamp of the Arab Bank was stamped, in a different format than that stamped on the bills of lading, in the cases that are the subject of charges 3-7. In addition, these are not signatures of the authorized signatories at the bank.
In fact, there is no need to investigate this matter excessively, since there is no dispute that the documents were not redeemed by any person, and no consideration was paid for them, so there can be no doubt that the stamps and signatures stamped on the copies of the bills of lading were not authentic, and were not made by representatives of the Arab Bank, with permission and authority.
An important circumstantial evidence of the forgery of the stamps of the Arab Bank is, as stated, the application to Ephraim Meir in order to obtain an official paper of the Arab Bank, which strengthens the claim that the forged stamps were prepared by defendants 1 and 3, or by someone on their behalf, and were stamped on the bills of lading.
Ephraim Meir testified that the request came on behalf of the two defendants "The next thing was of course a request for paper, but it was from both of them and they gave me a fax, pass it on to me 04- And so I did. I forwarded it to the fax that appears... I don't have him and it was also hard for me to get Frizzi because his phones weren't available." (p. 2327 of the transcript, paras. 11-14).