Interpol to join manhunt for Heftsiba CEO
Police's National Fraud Unit believes Boaz Yona, head of bankrupt construction company, is hiding in Romania; international warrant for his arrest to be issued soon
The police's National Fraud Unit believes that the chief executive officer of construction company Heftsiba, which went bankrupt,
is hiding in Romania. The information was discovered after the phones of Boaz Yona's parents in Israel
were wiretapped.
Attorney Ronel Fisher has spent the past few days at the Marriott Hotel in Bucharest along with contractor Yair Biton, who is interested in buying the Heftsiba company.
It appears that Yona traveled to Eastern Europe through London and an international warrant for his arrest will soon be issued and transferred to the Interpol.
Heftsiba's Clients
Ofer Petersburg
Hundreds of clients break into purchased unfinished apartments as company considers filing for bankruptcy
"I will not deny it if you say that I met with Yona," Attorney Fisher says," But it's not true. We came here for a different reason."
Yedioth Ahronoth has learned that in spite of the damage he caused, Yona is going ahead with his business activity in Eastern Europe and that most of the money he took out from Israel through fraud has been transferred there.
According to the suspicions, the funds total NIS 120 million, which were emptied out from public companies in favor of his private businesses – large real estate projects in Russia and Romania.
Dozens of people have been questioned so far by the police, including junior company employees. Boaz's father Mordechai will also be summoned for questioning in the coming days, after the police received new information indicating that he was involved in the affair.
Mordechai Yona claimed that he was surprised by the collapse of the company he founded and by his son's actions, but the chief financial officer of the public company Heftsiba Jerusalem Gold, Motti Netanel, framed him during his interrogation when he said that Mordechai Yona had known that his son used to withdraw tens of millions of shekels from the company and had done nothing about it.
Netanel also told the investigators that he had reported to Yona about his son's actions and had even presented him with documents related to the issue. Netanel said that Boaz Yona used to withdraw funds during the quarter and return them toward its end in order to have a balanced quarterly report.
Netanel's lawyer, Attorney Ovadia Cohen, said that "he is only a junior worker in the company. All his reports were true."
On Sunday, Bank Leumi asked the court to declare Boaz Yona's wife a bankrupt person as well. According to the bank, Tamar Yona provided her husband with guarantees for loans he took from the banks shortly before the couple fled the country.
"Tamar Yona's absence and the fact that she left the country without leaving any traces prove that this was a bankruptcy act," Bank Leumi said in the request it filed with court.
Oron Meiri, Lital Dobrovitsky and Michal Goldberg contributed to the report
