In light of all the evidence, defendant 1 seeks his acquittal of all the offenses attributed to him in the framework of the 14th indictment.
Hearing and Determination of Charges 9-14
- In this group of charges, as in the eighth indictment, these are also allegations relating to the reduction of import taxes, and there is no claim that the supplier or suppliers did not receive full consideration for the goods they sent to Israel.
All of the charges involve the replacement of the original supplier's accounts with other supplier accounts in which the value of the goods is reduced, which, according to the prosecution, is intended to evade the payment of full import taxes, by using fake and false supplier accounts.
It would seem that there is no real dispute that the supplier's accounts that were attached to the import records are not the original accounts, since the goods were actually supplied by another party, and there is also no dispute that these are higher sums, when it comes to the value of the goods.
In order to decide on this group of charges, it is appropriate to begin with a description of the parties whose names are mentioned in connection with the transactions that are the subject of charges 9-14.
In Charges 11-14, these are supplier accounts that were allegedly generated by PLANAS, which is presumed to be the supplier of the goods. As stated, there is no dispute that PLANAS was not the original supplier of the goods in these charges, and the amounts appearing in PLANAS' supplier accounts are substantially reduced compared to the amounts appearing in the original supplier accounts.
In my remarks with regard to Charge No. 8, I have already determined that Defendant 1 used the PLANAS company for the purpose of producing false supplier accounts, and that he acted on behalf of that company, without being given permission or power of attorney to do so. In this regard, I accepted the testimony of defendant 3 as credible, according to which it was a company belonging to him, which was not active during the relevant period, without any permission given to defendant 1 to act on behalf of the company or to produce documents, including supplier invoices, on behalf of PLANAS.