The UBS Switzerland affair is reaching the indictments stage. The Ministry of Justice today announced that the Tel Aviv District Attorney (Taxation and Economics) and the economic department of the Office of the State Attorney had notified five suspects of their intention to indict them for tax offenses and money laundering, subject to a hearing.
Two of the suspects involved are Boris Weissman and his son, Avissar Weissman, former owners of a chain of clinics for treatment of sexual disfunction. The three other suspects are Meron Neeman, Moshe Rachamut, and Arik Israeli, who are suspected of abetting the alleged tax evasion and money laundering by Boris and Avissar Weissman.
The Weissmans are suspected of managing a chain of dozens of clinics, mainly in Eastern Europe, and creating an ownership structure designed to conceal their control of the companies owning the clinics.
They are suspected of opening accounts at UBS Switzerland in the name of companies resident in tax shelters, and transferring the chain's revenue, estimated in the hundreds of millions of shekels in recent years, to the accounts.
They are also suspected of transferring tens of millions of shekels from their personal accounts at UBS Switzerland without reporting this revenue to the Israel Tax Authority, while making false statements to the Tax Authority about their real positions in the chain.
"For years, Boris and Avissar filed a series of false reports with the tax authorities, in which they described themselves as mere employees, and concealed their control of companies and the income they derived from the companies," the Ministry of Justice's announcement said.
The three other suspects - Neeman, Rachamut, and Israeli - are suspected of taking part in the system allegedly developed by Boris and Avissar Weissman for taking tens of millions of shekels in cash from the profits accumulated by the chain through alleged cash withdrawals in Romania and transferring the money to Israel.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 14, 2015
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