Joint statement by the National Insurance and police spokespeople:
Police officers from the National Economic Crime Unit Lahav 433, National Insurance investigators, National Guard officers and Northern District police officers arrested 3 suspects, residents of the north, this morning, on suspicion of committing offenses under the National Insurance Law totaling millions of shekels
In the past year, the Investigations and Intelligence Division at the National Insurance received information in which it was reported that an attorney and several elements are falsifying disability claims from citizens using forged documents.
After the information was transferred to Lahav 433, in recent months a joint investigation by the National Economic Crime Unit was conducted in Lahav 433 together with the Investigations and Intelligence Division of the National Insurance Institute, on suspicion that, in dozens of cases, claimants submitted false medical summaries in order to be eligible for disability benefits and at the same time receive high percentages that exempt them from paying income tax.
As mentioned, in some cases, according to the suspicion, lawyers and other parties who accompanied the claimants in the proceedings conducted in their cases were involved in the preparation and submission of the false documents.
The suspicions indicate that the amount of benefits paid to those claimants for the alleged fraudulent acts amounts to millions of shekels.
Today, the investigation became public, with the arrest of the three main suspects on suspicion of committing offenses attributed to them, including: forgery, receiving something by fraud under aggravated circumstances and money laundering.
In addition, searches were conducted, during which documents and approximately 74,000 shekels in cash were seized.
The detainees were brought for questioning under caution at the Lahav 433 offices, and at the end, depending on the findings, they will be brought for a hearing on extending their detention at the Magistrate's Court of Kfar Saba.