Dor Energy controlling shareholder Shmuel Dankner was interrogated under caution a few weeks ago by Customs and VAT Division investigators in the "great fuel fraud affair", as the investigators call it. Hitherto, both the Customs Authority and Dor Energy had kept Dankner’s interrogation a secret.
Dankner, who was interrogated for several hours, on two different dates, was not arrested but released on bail on conclusion of the interrogation. This was in contrast to other senior officials at Dor Energy and other companies, likewise suspected of involvement in the affair.
Until 1996, Dankner served as Chairman of Dor Energy, but, according to company sources, was actively involved in management only until the end of 1993. He was succeeded by Yaakov Lifschitz, former Ministry of Finance director-general and Chairman of Israel Military Industries, who was not questioned in connection with this affair.
Dor Energy did not report Dankner’s interrogation to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, even though Dankner continues to serve as a company director. In recent years, Dankner has mainly been involved in the Dor group’s communications and banking business, and not so much in real estate and energy.
Released on bail last week were Dor Energy general manager Danny Yaakobi and Jerusalem and Palestinian Autonomy branch manager Uri Shmuel, who is in charge of the sale of fuel to the Palestinian Authority. Yaakobi and Shmuel were arrested on suspicion of unlawfully offsetting inputs tax in the VAT reports submitted by Dor Energy to the VAT authorities, in respect of fictitious invoices totalling NIS 12 million.
The investigators alleged that the invoices had served as a cover-up for bribes paid by Dor Energy to senior Palestinian Authority officials, through Shefer & Levy, from which the company received the invoices. The suspects’ attorneys claimed that their clients had not committed any criminal offence, since bribes in the framework of transactions concluded with foreign companies, are payments allowed as legitimate businesses expenses.
Dor Energy today refused to comment on the report.
Published by Israel's Business Arena January 4, 1999