The filing of indictments and plea bargains in the ICC-Cal fraud and bribery case first exposed by "Globes" in 2009 is continuing. The economic division in the State Prosecutor's Office has filed an indictment against businessman Dietmar Knochelmann to the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court for being an accessory to fraud in merchant acquiring involving tens of millions of shekels in gambling money at credit card company ICC-Cal.
Together with the indictment, the State Prosecutor notified the court that that a plea bargain had been agreed by the parties, in which Knochelmann admitted that as a representative of companies that engaged in online credit merchant acquiring in 2008-2010, he helped ICC-Cal and its then-senior executives - ex-CEO Boaz Checik and Steve Greenspan, ex-chairman of ICC-Cal subsidiary Cal International - commit fraud.
As part of the plea bargain, it was agreed that Knochelmann would take full responsibility for his actions and admit that in his joint criminal activity with ICC-Cal, Checik, and Greenspan, he was an accessory to deceiving international credit organizations and US issuers into thinking that the business for which merchant acquiring was being conducted was legitimate commerce, not profits from gambling websites, as was actually the case. Under the plea bargain, the parties are asking the Court to sentence Knochelmann to six months' probation, a NIS 1.5 million fine, and expropriation of an additional NIS 7.5 million by the state - his profits from the crime. Two other parties involved, businessman and startup entrepreneur Shay Ben-Asulin, an owner and partner in a number of companies engaging in online credit merchant acquiring, and Adv. Dganit Basha-Segev, among other things Ben-Asulin's partner in online merchant acquiring companies, were convicted in a plea bargain in April, and a plea bargain was signed with ICC-Cal last month in which the company took responsibility for the actions of its subsidiary and returned NIS 85 million to the expropriation fund - the amount it received from the crimes.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 17, 2016
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