Last update - 00:00 07/01/2007
Police may expand Tax Authority probe to include more fraud cases
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent
The investigation into alleged corruption at the Tax Authority will expand incoming days to include fresh suspicions of fraud and bribery, which arose due to wiretapping that had no initial connection to the probe.
Police will summon for questioning in the coming days more businessmen suspected of taking advantage of the system set up by entrepreneurs Kobi Ben-Gur and Yoram Karashi to manipulate the Tax Authority. The men who are expected to be called in run mid-size business operations and police have not yet decided whether they should be interrogated as suspects.
Sources involved in the investigation said over the weekend that the media is publishing information that is not necessarily linked to criminal offenses and that the investigation is focusing on different aspects.
"Not every journalistic report warrants a criminal investigation," the sources said, adding that police found some of the reports to be unsubstantiated.
"The investigation is focusing at this stage only on suspicions announced officially or raised in court hearings dealing with the suspects' remand extensions. If more problematic affairs are exposed, investigators will not hesitate to go back as far as four years," the sources said.
Matza's deputies released to house arrest
The police fraud unit will hold a special meeting Sunday to assess whether Tax Authority chief Jacky Matza and his two deputies would be capable of obstructing the investigation if they were released from custody.
Matza's two deputies, Shmuel Bovorov and Gidi Bar Zakai, were freed to house arrest Sunday, with restrictions. Matza is also expected to be released to house arrest.
Police were Sunday to continue to question the two suspects in the affair who have already been released to house arrest, the head of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's bureau, Shula Zaken, and the former head of the Tax Authority Eitan Rub.