I have no doubt that Defendant 6 was Defendant 1's accomplice in the fraudulent scheme, and even though the forged documents were prepared by Defendant 1, the party who actually used them, is none other than Defendant 6.
After the goods were released by defendant 6, he purchased them, allegedly, for Piccolo-Line from Sevilla Trading Ltd. Here, too, we are dealing with a misrepresentation, since the importer was the Danidov company, and how can we explain the issuance of invoices on behalf of the Sevilla company, as the one that sold the goods, as it were, to the Piccolo Line company? Sevilla's tax invoices are false invoices, with the amounts appearing in them being higher than the real cost of the goods, all with the intention of creating a false representation towards the tax authorities. The Piccolo Line Company paid for the goods, which were allegedly sold to it by the Sevilla Company, with checks issued by Defendant 6, when it is clear that the checks covering the amount of tax that was not paid were not paid by the Sevilla Company, and I find it difficult to accept Defendant 6's version that this was not his knowledge.
Since I have determined that this defendant was a party to the fraudulent scheme, which was intended to defraud the tax authorities, it is reasonable to assume that defendant 6 will not transfer to Svilla the sums that were fraudulently extracted from the tax authorities, and I determine as a matter of fact that this was the case.
The reports given to the tax appellant by Piccolo Line were false reports, which did not reflect reality, and thus Piccolo Line committed the offenses attributed to it under the VAT Law.
Adv. Rappaport argued that the company's manager should not be convicted of committing the offenses, since he is a separate legal person. I do not accept this argument, and just as these offenses can be attributed to Piccolo-Line, there is no doubt that the company's active manager can also be seen as being responsible for committing those offenses. (See, for example,section 119 of the VAT Law).