Scam in the hundreds of millions.
Man in handcuffs, illustration (Photo: Israel Police spokeswoman)
Businessman Mike Ben Ari, the suspect who defrauded about a thousand investors in a total amount of hundreds of millions of shekels, was extradited tonight (Sunday) from Bosnia to Israel.
This, about a year and a half after the opening of the investigation against him.
Later he will be brought to continue his detention in Israel.
According to the Securities Authority's suspicion, Ben Ari, the owner of the EGFE company, presented investors with a false representation regarding the expected investments with their funds and used them for other purposes.
For this purpose, among other things, he also forged documents.
The project was not supervised by the authority and the trust in which he proposed to invest did not receive a permit.
At the beginning of May 2021, Ben Ari fled the country, despite the ban on leaving the country against him.
Allegedly, he was helped by one of his investors and used his passport.
The friend himself, Nachum Eisenstadt, was recently convicted of obstructing proceedings and received seven months of community service and a NIS 50,000 fine.
After that, Ben Ari sent the investors an email in which he confessed his actions, and according to them he threatened those who would sue him.
"Israeli Madoff", Bernie Madoff (Photo: Reuters)
After he fled, hundreds of investors filed a request to liquidate the company owned by Ben Ari.
According to their lawyers, at least 400 victims lost their money, some of them widows, orphans, divorced women, heirs who lost their parents' inheritance, disabled, visually impaired, young couples and pensioners.
"Most of the victims lacked knowledge and understanding of investments. Ben Ari managed to mislead these victims with the help of his charisma and through false and seductive representations he presented to them," they claimed.
According to the investors' lawyers, Ben Ari actually ran a Ponzi scheme for more than 15 years.
The Ponzi scheme focused mainly on investments in municipal bonds issued in the US, by various states or by cities. Ben Ari allegedly created a cover story according to which his investments succeed in generating high profits because their money is invested in all kinds of American funds such as "Blue River", which supposedly operates from Colorado In retrospect, it turned out that this foundation severed ties with Ben Ari back in the early 2000s,
In order to increase the victims' trust in him, Ben Ari presented himself to the investors as a person living in great wealth and successful in business, including residences in northern Tel Aviv, lavish parties and launches, and grandiose events with famous artists, to which the investors and their friends were invited, according to the victims.
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