"A Large-Scale Criminal Scheme": BLU Executives Facing Indictments

The giant fraud case — the largest ever in Israel in the field of beverage container recycling, amounting to hundreds of millions of shekels — centered on the beverage company BLU and its owner Anan Shamshum, is heading toward indictments. This case was exposed in late 2023 following a long covert investigation, and the suspects have now been summoned by the Tax Authority's attorneys for a hearing before a decision is made on whether to prosecute them.

Collection and recycling companies are also involved in the case. For the first time, all suspects are being revealed, as well as the enormous sums allegedly siphoned from the state treasury due to a long-standing fraudulent practice: false reporting on the collection and recycling volumes of bottles and cans. This was achieved through fictitious "credit certificates," tax and VAT evasion, money laundering, and false bookkeeping, all carried out in cooperation with collection and recycling companies that did not actually perform the required work.

Through this method, BLU managed to collect deposit fees from consumers without incurring recycling costs. These actions harmed both environmental efforts and the state treasury, totaling approximately 335 million shekels. In practice, the damage to the state treasury due to tax offenses attributed to BLU is about 110 million shekels, and that of the assisting collection companies is about 40 million shekels.

It has also emerged that even after notifying the suspects of the intent to prosecute, the investigation continues, and other, even larger beverage companies are now in the crosshairs of the Tax Authority and the police.

The main suspect is Anan Shamshum, co-owner of BLU. Other key figures include CFO Anat Abid, sales manager Antoine Shamshum, and import manager Kamil Matanes. Draft indictments were also sent to the owners of collection companies: Rafi Ziv of Li-On and Zohar Levi of Bac-Boc.