On 18 May 1999, defendant 1 was interrogated by the police regarding the presence of the containers in the warehouses of the Okeanos Company without payment for them (P/302). To the question of who owned the goods that were in the warehouses, he replied: "I don't know. I heard it belonged to a company called Mallard." When asked if he knew who handled the release of the other four containers, he answered, "I don't know," and did not raise the version he had made in court, according to which he believed that the supplier returned the four containers to the port of origin. It is also worth referring to the words of Yehoshua Chelouche in his recorded conversation with Defendant 3, according to which he released the goods that are the subject of the first indictment for Defendant 1, and not at the request of other parties.
As explained above, the four additional containers arrived without original bills of lading, which allow for release, as was done with the first container. The prosecution claims that all the relevant details, including the number of containers and their storage data, were known to the freight forwarder, Transdor Ltd., when the copies of the bills of lading were transferred to the hands of defendant 1. Indeed, a perusal of Transdor's documents relating to the matter, which are found in the shipping file, P/57, shows that the documents were transferred to the defendant, and this also arises from the testimony of Doron Kasher, who testified on behalf of the company in court. Kasher recounted a phone call during which he informed defendant 1 that the original bills of lading had not been received for the purpose of releasing the goods and asked for his handling. According to him, no answer was received from the defendant on how to proceed in this case. The fact that all the relevant data, including the copies of the original bills of lading, came into the possession of defendant 1 is therefore proved, in my opinion, beyond any reasonable doubt, and I reject his claim that he does not remember seeing the copies of the bills relating to the four containers. The need for forged bills of exchange is due to the fact that no original bills of lading were received, and the testimony of the customs broker, Yosef Bashi, indicates that Yehoshua Shlosh presented him with the forged certificates (P/65 and P/66), together with import notes in the name of Contel Investments in a tax appeal (P/77). A public servant's certificate submitted in connection with these records indicates that these are the records that Bashi gave to customs. In both cases, the supplier's name is GB Grant from the UK, and the importer is Contel Investments Ltd. In one list, which was submitted on April 28, 1999, we are dealing with a quantity of goods of 490 computer monitors at a total cost of $69,580, which was received in two containers. The release was made on April 29, 1999, when the tax appeal was charged in the sum of NIS 52,002. The second list was submitted on April 30, 1999. The names of the supplier and the importer are identical, and there are 658 computer monitors at a cost of $93,436. Here, too, the goods were received in two containers. The release was made on May 4, 1999, and a tax appeal in the amount of NIS 69,748 was paid.