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Justice Min. official: 'Too soon to say if exit was trick'
By Amit Benaroia, TheMarker Correspondent and Staff
Tags: israel news

"I can't rule out a development in the cardiac patch affair that will connect it to money-laundering, but it's too early to tell whether there was a money-laundering trick here. In the meantime, the media reports are much ado about nothing."

That was a senior Justice Ministry official's response this weekend to reports that the ministry's Israel Money Laundering Prohibition Authority (IMPA) was investigating the SafeSky affair. The police are not involved at this stage.

Investigators believe the deal announced last week, that Amos Bouchnik and Aharon (Arik) Klein's company SafeSky would receive $370 million from Micro-Star International of Taiwan, was intended to cover an illegal cash transfer from shadowy foreign sources to Israeli banks, including Poalei Agudat Israel Bank, of the First International Group.
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Micro-Star has vigorously denied any such deal, or even knowledge of the company.

The IMPA was created to fight money laundering and terror financing. Its main source of information is the banks, which report suspicious accounts and transactions. Banks are required by law to report certain kinds of activities, even when no crimes are suspected, such as cash deposits or withdrawals of NIS 200,000 or more.

Justice Ministry officials confirmed that the authority is reviewing the so-called exit. A senior figure said the story showed "how important it is, in modern commerce, to know who you're doing business with, because you can lose everything.

"Many money-laundering schemes throughout the world involve connections between well-connected individuals and top lawyers. When you go to the bank and you want to do something that's not quite kosher, you take trustworthy people with you," the Justice Ministry official said.

Even if the money-laundering theory proves to be correct, it's still not clear why the heads of SafeSky rushed to report their spectacular exit to the media, exposing themselves to scrutiny and subsequent disclosure. The alternative was to present the contract with MSI to their bank and to deposit the money, while benefiting from banking confidentiality.

According to media reports over the weekend, Hagai Hadas, who is responsible for the negotiations over the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit and who is also a director of SafeSky, reviewed the technology involved in the company's Life Keeper patch - which includes the use of GPS technology - in connection to Shalit and in his previous position as deputy Mossad head.

In a Channel 2 news report this weekend SafeSky officers said, "Hagai told us that if every soldier had a Life Keeper patch, we'd know where Gilad Shalit is."
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