The Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office today (Thursday) filed an indictment in the city district court against Hillel Babev, Efi Tzafani, Yaakov Atias, Adv. Alan Cohen and another defendant for fraud and economic offenses.
This is after they fraudulently received NIS 6,400,000 million and tried to receive another NIS 575,000 from clients who came to them in order to receive legal services.
According to the indictment, Babev is the owner of a law firm where Cohen and the other defendant were employed as lawyers, Tzafani as an administrator and Atias as an emissary.
As part of its activities, the firm has provided various legal services in a variety of areas.
During 2017, against the background of debts in the amount of NIS 7.8 million, a collection order was issued against Babev, in which he was required to deposit all receipts from his business in one supervised account and was prohibited from creating new debts.
Despite the above, Babe pocketed about NIS 20 million received from his clients, including: Holocaust survivors, people with physical and mental disabilities, the elderly, the sick and more.
The defendants took advantage of the personal situation of the complainants who came to hire the services of the defendants, and presented them with false promises.
Among other things, the defendants initiated staged meetings between the clients and Safani, Atias and others, during which they introduced themselves as representatives of various insurance companies or as having positions relevant to the requested legal service.
In other cases, the defendants presented to the complainants an overestimation of the results of the legal proceedings and demanded for them an exorbitant fee or false legal expenses, while undertaking to perform legal actions which they did not and did not intend to perform at all.
The total amount of money fraudulently received in forty-three different cases is about NIS 6.4 million, and the amount they tried to fraudulently receive is NIS 575,000.
In addition, Babev deceived his creditors by providing partial information and hiding his full income in the amount of no less than NIS 20,775,136.
During the relevant period, Babe deposited NIS 9.8 million in the accounts of Tzafani, Cohen and the other defendant, and deducted checks from his customers in various exchanges - totaling NIS 10.9 million (tried to deduct another unpaid NIS 2.3 million).
Although Babev knew that a serious criminal investigation was being conducted against him for dozens of complaints, about two weeks ago Babev arrived at the border crossing with Jordan with the intention of leaving the country.
Upon arriving at the border checkpoint, the defendant presented a forged passport (a temporary passport that was stolen and transferred to Leviev), but due to suspicions on the part of the border workers, his departure from the country was prevented.
At the same time, Adv. Koren, Katz and Guttman Zakai submitted a request to extend Babiev's detention until the end of the proceedings.
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