A 63-year-old Israeli has been in custody in Graz for three years. Yesterday he wanted to go back there. He wanted to go to his cell to leave the trial that he was being tried for involvement in serious fraud, money laundering and a criminal organization. The accused raised his voice several times, and questions from the judge led to violent outbursts of emotion. The tone on the second day of the trial surrounding the fraud at the Upper Austrian aircraft supplier FACC became much rougher.
As reported, FACC lost a total of 54 million euros more than six years ago through a scam. A group of criminals had set up a fake email address for the then CEO Walter Stephan and instructed FACC finance managers to transfer millions to foreign accounts. FACC carried out several transactions before the fraud was finally noticed on January 19, 2016. But by then the money had already been split and transferred to other accounts. Within hours, huge sums of money were no longer comprehensibly distributed in this way. The case ended up in Graz because the first damaged companies are in eastern and upper Styria.
The 63-year-old accused is said to have managed a company that was engaged in the sale of companies and bank accounts on the Internet. He founded numerous letterbox companies, especially in Europe.
The 63-year-old felt free of any guilt on the second day of the trial. Yesterday’s questioning was mainly about the forged documents with which he had founded numerous companies. Passports, certifications, stamps – everything was wrong. But all the equipment belonged to his acquaintance, the documents were only made out in his office, the accused said. He did not “edit” the documents, only “forwarded them”. Everything he had previously admitted to the police in Israel had been “mistranslated.”
Because of the 63-year-old’s excessive interim comments, the judge’s collar burst: “I’ve been negotiating for more than 30 years. I don’t think about letting you interrupt me all the time.” First witnesses are expected on March 8th.
Source: Nachrichten
