Four Israeli businessmen have been convicted for customs, tax, forgery and fraud offences.

They obtained computers from overseas suppliers without paying for them by using fake letters of credit (L/Cs).

String of scams

Uri Resh, Yehoshua Shlush, Erlado Farizi and Avi Kalmaro committed the offences more than a decade ago and conned electronics suppliers from several countries out of millions of dollars.

The Tel Aviv District Court heard that Resh was the mastermind behind a string of scams that netted him over US$2 million dollars.

Fake L/Cs

The court heard that Resh used front companies to order computers from abroad and promised to pay his suppliers with L/Cs, purportedly issued by the Bank of Israel.

But the suppliers were refused payment when they presented what turned out to be forged L/Cs to banks.

The suppliers then found it hard to trace the fraudsters because of the complex web of front companies and middlemen that they used.

This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the ICC or any of the other partners in DC-PRO.