However, the defendants must be convicted of the offense of theft, under section 383 of the Penal Law, due to taking the goods from their owners' permission, fraudulently and without claiming a right in good faith, with the intention of permanently depriving the owners of the goods and without paying for them.
With regard to the allegations regarding forgery of documents and the use of forged documents, there is no dispute that a supplier's account in the name of the British company Contel was attached to the import registration that is the subject of the second indictment (P/43 ). This account is false, as the provider is LA Computer Center The Comp Ltd., and as was made clear in the hearing regarding the first charge, it was Defendant 1 who was behind the preparation of the false documents in the name of Contel, and he was the one who used them. The evidence indicates that this was with the knowledge and consent of defendant 4, and therefore he should be regarded as an accomplice in the forgery of the supplier's account and its use, in the framework of the submission of the import license to the customs authorities.
Therefore, I convict the defendants of the offense of forgery of a document under aggravated circumstances, under section 418 of the Penal Law, and of using a forged document, under section 420 of the Penal Law. The aggravating circumstances surrounding the offense of forgery relate to the sophistication involved in the commission of the act, the scope and dimensions of the offense, and the fact that it involves the commission of additional offenses.
Defendants 1 and 4 are also charged with offenses against the Customs Ordinance and the VAT Law. The first offense is the preparation and presentation of a sales account that is supposedly true and in fact is not, according to section 212(a)(3) together with section 218 of the Customs Ordinance. On the basis of the factual basis that I have determined, the defendants were responsible for submitting a register to which a false supplier's account was attached, and therefore the offense attributed to them in this section was proven. In addition, it was proven that the defendants committed an offense under section 212(a)(6) of the Customs Ordinance, since they provided the customs officer with incorrect details in the declaration or certificate that they submitted to him, and the matter is stated in the misleading details that appear in the import license.