Father fled to a suite, son burned documents on a grill: The dramatic raid by the Tax Authority

Dudu Ohana, a resident of Rehovot, was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of managing shell companies through which he distributed and offset fictitious invoices and committed, according to the Tax Authority, tax offenses of a significant scale. The Authority claims that Ohana was arrested after he had been trying for a long period to evade the investigation being conducted against him.

The arrest was carried out as part of an operational activity by the Customs and VAT Investigation Unit of Be'er Sheva and the Intelligence Unit of the Tax Authority, with the assistance of police officers from the Hadera station. According to the suspicion, Ohana rented a suite in a hotel in Hadera, far from his place of residence, and from there continued to manage the shell companies he had established and the people who acted on his behalf.

The investigation teams located his whereabouts using technological means, followed him for several days, and last Thursday arrested him in his hotel room. During a search conducted in the suite, computers, mobile phones, and lawyers' stamps were seized, which are suspected to have been used to sign forged documents, along with other evidence.

As part of the investigation, a suspicion also arose of an attempt to obstruct justice by Ohana's son. Several weeks earlier, Tax Authority investigators arrived to conduct a search at the suspect's home, and during it, it was discovered, according to the suspicion, that the son burned documents and stamps that were in his father's possession on a grill and even used a water hose in the garden in an attempt to destroy additional evidence. The son was arrested following the incident and was later released under restrictive conditions.

The Magistrate's Court in Be'er Sheva extended Ohana's detention until Thursday, August 13.