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Israeli law enforcement officials say they want to question Lev Leviev, the business baron whose companies are at the center of a vast network of gemstone smuggling that has worked for years. Among the six people arrested by police on Monday for interrogation are two of his relatives and four other people involved or involved in his business in Israel and Russia.
A source close to Leviev said he could return voluntarily to Israel for questioning.
The arrests occurred as a result of the capture of a "mule" of smuggling at Ben Gurion International Airport a few months ago. This triggered a joint police and customs investigation, as a result of which the state suspects of people working for Leviev to be involved in smuggling diamonds for tens or even hundreds of millions of shekels (in total ) in Israel.
LLD Leviev, LLD, said that "Mr. Leviev and the companies he controls operate in accordance with the appropriate standards and in compliance with the law." We hope that the problem will be resolved quickly and that suspicions will be unfounded. "
Police and tax authorities suspect money laundering, offenses under various tax laws, conspiracy to commit a crime, falsification of documents, fraud, etc.
The witness of one state, whose name comes from another corruption case, helps the police to conduct an investigation, the details of which are governed by a gag order imposed by Judge Guy Avnon at the court of Rishon Letzion district.
Diamonds inside
The investigation began a few months ago when customs officers at the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv surprised a man, badociated with Leviev's group of companies, who allegedly attempted to Smuggle diamonds for hundreds of thousands of shekels. He and a person accompanying him tried to go through the "Nothing to Report" path, although he would have hidden the gems inside his body and would have been caught.
The interrogation of the two suspects led the police to discover what appeared to be a vast case of gemstone smuggling run by the state witness. With his cooperation, a secret investigation was opened.
This lasted several months and found evidence of methodical trafficking of diamonds in Israel.
The extent of contraband could have reached hundreds of millions of shekels, all as part of Leviev's group.
However, as said, the police arrested his brother. Sources from the diamond industry and the brothers' social circle say that these two people have been fighting for years and have not been in touch during this time. However, the brother could still hold shares in Leviev's companies.
The former director of a diamond polishing factory that Leviev owns in Russia is one of six arrests. The others work or work for his companies in Russia and Israel.
The man who broke De Beers
Lev Leviev was born in the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan and immigrated to Israel at the age of 14. He has become one of the most successful and diverse businessmen in the world. Leviev is best known for breaking the monopoly of the world diamond market held by the De Beers cartel in the 1980s.
He has also invested heavily in construction and real estate, including through publicly traded companies in Israel, in locations ranging from the West Bank to Wall Street. The real estate company most badociated with his name was Africa Israel Investments, which he had acquired from Bank Leumi and which had resulted in a debt agreement with creditors. In September, the court approved the takeover of Africa Israel by Israeli businessman Moti Ben-Moshe and badured that creditors would get the bulk of their money – 2.3 billion shekels on the $ 3 billion they owed.
Although a hero of the ultra-Orthodox Chabad movement to which he belongs, notably for his expansive philanthropic efforts, Leviev has been criticized and his companies boycotted for construction projects in West Bank settlements. He has also been accused of abuse in gemstone mines in Angola.
The close relations between Leviev and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been widely reported.
Leviev had been the target of multiple investigations in recent months, but police authorities said the investigation was limited to his diamond case.
Why his group could be involved in diamond smuggling, the first place is unclear. The tax of a diamond company is based on the turnover and not on the profit. As a result, there is no tax advertising for the smuggling of diamonds into Israel unless they are subsequently fraudulently committed, and the sale was registered in a third country where the rates are the same. Taxes are lower (like Belgium or Dubai).
One of the reasons for the contraband could be that the stones were of dubious origin; their seller did not have a license to market them; or they were illegally mined, for example. In any case, to bring them into Israel without declaring them is illegal.
Eyal Besserglick, the lawyer of one of the suspects (who is not a close relative of Leviev), said he is confident that the suspicions will be refuted, and said that his client It had nothing to do with the whole affair. "He worked with the businessman more than six years ago and there is no evidence linking him to criminal activity," Besserglick said.
Another uncertain aspect is the impact of this case on the diamond industry in Israel. Leviev is one of the largest importers of rough diamonds in the country; his companies provide work to dozens of other companies that polish and market the stones through the Ramat Gan Diamond Exchange. These companies employ hundreds of people. If his business hurts, he can dozens of others. And this is not the right time for the diamond trade in Israel: demand is plummeting and profits are falling.
On the other hand, the business man in question extracts the stones partly in Russia, where the name of the game is related to the Kremlin. In this respect, his business is apparently safe.
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