A serious indictment was filed today (Thursday) in the Central District Court in Lod against five defendants in a case of systematic fraud and forgery against National Insurance, amounting to millions of shekels - due to the filing of dozens of fake disability claims for autism.
According to the indictment, filed by attorneys Elhanan Dreyfus and Omri Gil of the Central District Attorney's Office, between the years 2020-2023, two defendants - a 46-year-old from Yokneam Elite and a 40-year-old from Holon - through the two companies they own, acted to fraudulently obtain disability benefits for autism from the National Insurance Institute for 30 children, while making false representations and submitting false documents, according to which the children allegedly suffer from various functional, behavioral and developmental limitations.
Another defendant, 40 years old - who is the partner of the defendant from Holon - is accused of impersonating a doctor and helping the two defendants falsify the claims.
The indictment details how the scheme worked: The defendants approached clients through various intermediaries, introduced the companies they owned, and offered to assist in obtaining disability benefits for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.
After receiving personal information and power of attorney from the clients, the defendants filed claims with forged documents and certificates aimed at creating a false representation that the children suffered from much more significant limitations than they actually did. In some cases, the defendants took real documents prepared by experts and changed some of the details, and in other cases they forged the document from the beginning and used the relevant expert's signature, without his knowledge.
After the false claims were received by the National Insurance Institute, the defendants asked the clients to transfer the retroactive disability benefit received as a fee to their bank account or that of the companies they owned. The defendants laundered and disguised the illegal money through the ongoing activity in the companies' bank accounts.
In other cases, the defendants demanded payment in cash or by transferring funds to third-party accounts, for professional diagnoses they arranged for clients.
In their actions, the defendants fraudulently received a total of approximately 2.6 million shekels, and also laundered money in the amount of over 13 million shekels.
They also did not report their income to the tax authorities.
The indictment also states that the additional defendant agreed with the defendants that he would pose as a doctor in order to provide false diagnoses to the clients' children.
In this context, the defendant met with various children and clients as a doctor named "Costa More", claimed to be a behavior analyst and certified diagnostician, and gave them various instructions and documents that were used by the defendants in submitting false claims to National Insurance.
In addition, the defendant himself filed a false claim with the National Insurance Institute, stating that he needed a disability pension, and due to the misrepresentation he made, he received approximately 134,000 shekels.
The Central District Attorney's Office accuses the two defendants and the companies they own of numerous offenses of receiving something fraudulently under aggravated circumstances, forgery and use of a document with the intent to obtain something under aggravated circumstances, money laundering, and more.
The additional defendant is accused of multiple offenses of impersonating a doctor, receiving something by fraud under aggravated circumstances, using a forged document under aggravated circumstances, and more.
Along with the indictment, the prosecution submitted to the court a request to order the confiscation of the defendants' assets, totaling approximately 7.5 million shekels.
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