Fuel Fraud Scheme Defendant Sentenced to 40 Months

A court in Ramla has sentenced Raad Shaar to 40 months in prison for his role in a large-scale fuel fraud scheme that involved the illegal creation and use of fictitious invoices totaling millions of shekels. Deputy President Judge Doriin Saban Noy also imposed a fine of one million shekels and a suspended sentence on Shaar. The case, known as "Star Birth," operated between 2013 and 2018, with Shaar and his ex-wife, Inas Shuwaiki, an accountant, providing the fake infrastructure, including forged documents and identity cards.

According to the indictment, the main defendants, Shlomo Yaakovson and Ze'ev Shmayen, were accused of distributing and offsetting fictitious invoices amounting to 156 million shekels in tax. They paid Shaar and Shuwaiki a commission of 30 agorot per liter of fuel listed on these invoices, resulting in millions of shekels in earnings for the couple. This sophisticated criminal network operated systematically for five years, causing significant damage to state coffers as businesses offset VAT based on non-existent transactions.

Under a plea agreement, both sides requested a 40-month prison sentence for Shaar. Judge Saban Noy accepted this request, also imposing the one million shekel fine and a suspended sentence of several months, conditional on Shaar not committing any tax offenses for three years. The case was handled by lawyers Or Hadaya, Eitan Lamei, and Devir Amar, and investigated by the Israel Tax Authority's Tel Aviv investigations unit.

This conviction is part of a series of serious tax fraud cases exposed in recent years, highlighting ongoing enforcement efforts against fictitious invoices. Such schemes are described as severely damaging public funds and undermining the rule of law.