Another argument made by defendant 5 is that this defendant had no interest in reducing the amount of the import taxes obligatory. This defendant is a business manager that amounts to tens of millions of shekels, and there is no logic in him endangering his business, in order to receive a small part of the reduced import taxes, an amount not exceeding NIS 150,000.
In summary, defendant 5 seeks his acquittal of all charges.
After examining all the evidence in this case, and despite the existence of a suspicion that Defendant 5 was involved, in one way or another, in the fraudulent scheme hatched by Defendant 1, with the participation of Defendant 6, I have reached the conclusion that Defendant 5 should be acquitted of the offenses attributed to him, due to doubt.
Indeed, the evidence and documents presented by the prosecution indicate a close relationship between defendant 5 and Piccolo Line Ltd., when as far as Opsa is concerned, the order for the goods was made for Piccolo Line Ltd., and not necessarily for OPCI. However, I am not persuaded that this evidence is sufficient to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that defendant 5 was an accomplice to the criminal activity of defendant 1, which would have endangered both his business relationship with Opsa and his extensive business, in various and varied fields.
I find it difficult to see the logic behind the claim that this defendant took part in a fraudulent scheme, which was intended to generate profits of approximately NIS 500,000, a sum that was supposed to be divided among a number of partners, which is inconsistent with his pattern of behavior in the past. I cannot rule out the version that OPCI was supposed to serve as the importer of the goods from Opsa, after defendant 6 announced that he wished to suspend the continuation of the import, since he had a large inventory.
As I noted in my previous remarks, the fraudulent scheme was concocted mainly by defendant 1, who was the one who took care of the replacement of the supplier's accounts, the reduction of import costs, and the registration of the Danidov company as the importer of the goods, without it being proven that he was in contact with defendant 5 in order to realize the fraudulent plan.