The Ministry of Education filed a huge lawsuit against an association in Ashkelon, claiming that it committed one of the largest fictitious reporting frauds ever exposed at a Torah institution.
According to the lawsuit published by Tuvia Yagelnik on the Galei Tzahal radio station, the association reported to the Ministry of Education that 648 avrechim and yeshiva students were registered at its institutions, while in reality only dozens of students were studying there.
Through the false reports, the association succeeded in raking in huge sums of millions of shekels from the state treasury.
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The lawsuit's data shows that between 2012 and 2022, over 40 million shekels were transferred to the association, according to the number of yeshiva students and churis that it regularly declared.
The fraud was exposed during 2022, when a covert audit was conducted at the association's institutions, which revealed that at most a few dozen students were staying there.
The inspection revealed that in the relatively small building, where it was claimed that the association's six different types of religious institutions operate, billiard and ping-pong tables were actually found in the shelter and kindergartens on the first floor.
The second and third floors of the building only had room for about 100 people, and dozens of kollel abrachi were there, while the yeshiva that was reported to the Ministry of Education did not exist at all.
According to the report on Galei Tzahal, even after the lie was exposed, the organization tried to come up with ridiculous excuses.
According to testimony obtained by investigators, the fraudulent method apparently operated through fictitious registration of 'students', who in return returned to the association part of the scholarship they received in cash.
At this stage, the Ministry of Education is demanding from the association only about 3 million shekels, which constitute the support funds transferred at the beginning of 2022, during the period when the field tests were conducted.
However, the Ministry of Education adds that there is reasonable basis to assume that the cheating method in question had been operating for many years previously.
