Former senior official at the Tax Authority charged with concealing income and money laundering of 29 million shekels

The State Attorney's Office filed an indictment today, Tuesday, at the Tel Aviv District Court against Shimon Cohen, a former senior official at the Tax Authority. He is charged with concealing income, assisting others in tax evasion, reporting offenses under the Income Tax Ordinance, and money laundering totaling 29 million shekels.

Along with Cohen, the defendants in the case, the investigation of which was revealed in "Calcalist", include bankrupt contractor Dudi Appel, Cohen's partner in his accounting firm and former Tax Authority employee Orli Tal, and businessmen Zvi Shafetz and Haim Salter, who were clients of Cohen's firm.

Cohen is a veteran lawyer and accountant whose firm specializes in international and trust taxation. He worked for 15 years at the Tax Authority, serving as director of professional divisions, acting deputy director general for professional affairs, and deputy tax assessor in Haifa and Tel Aviv.

Simultaneously, the State Attorney's Office filed a request to freeze assets worth tens of millions of shekels registered to Cohen's company, "S.B.E. Nechasim ve-Yazum". These include 29 apartments in Tiberias valued at 29 million shekels and an apartment in Ramat Gan valued at 1 million shekels. The prosecution also requested to freeze Cohen's personal assets, including two houses in Tel Aviv (20 million shekels), property in Tiberias (1.8 million shekels), a BMW (200,000 shekels), and an Audi (100,000 shekels).

"Brokerage commission for Dudi Appel was disguised as a loan agreement"

The indictment contains five charges. One concerns bankrupt contractor Dudi Appel. According to the prosecution, in 2018, Cohen brokered a deal where businessman Diego Marinberg sold his holdings in the German commercial real estate company TLG immobilien ag to Amir Dayan for 653 million euros.

Following the deal, Cohen established a company named Rilon, to which Marinberg transferred a 1% brokerage commission (5.6 million euros) and an additional 2.8 million euros for legal services. Cohen allegedly failed to report these revenues of approximately 8.4 million euros to the Tax Authority.

Contractor Dudi Appel, being bankrupt, was required to report income to a receiver. To avoid this, Cohen and Appel drafted false loan agreements between Appel and his sister, Dalia Appel, and his son, Eran Appel. The total amount Cohen transferred to Appel's relatives as a cover for the funds was 3.5 million shekels.

Representatives for Shimon Cohen, attorneys Ravit Tzemach and Amit Nir, stated: "This is an extremely absurd indictment that has no real basis and is destined to collapse in court."