Senior Housing Ministry official charged with fixing tenders for bribes

A senior official at the Ministry of Construction and Housing was charged Thursday with receiving tens of millions of shekels worth of bribes from building contractors in exchange for fixing tenders.

Gadi Reibuch, head of the technical department at the ministry’s central district office, is suspected of using relatives to help launder and conceal his illicit earnings.

Police discovered hundreds of thousands of shekels in cash at his home and a similar amount in foreign currency — dollars, sterling, euro and zlotys — sums that the tax authorities were unaware of, the indictment said.

Reibuch, who was involved in awarding massive ministry tenders, was first arrested in June by a joint team of investigators from the Israel’s Police national unit for combating economic crime and the tax authority. After his release, he was ordered to stay away from his office.

He was rearrested in December after the arrest of several other suspects.

גדי רייבוך, מנהל החטיבה הטכנית במחוז מרכז במשרד הבינוי והשיכון, מואשם בעבירות שוחד, הלבנת הון, עבירות מס, קבלת דבר במרמה בנסיבות מחמירות, הדחת עד ועבירות נוספות.https://t.co/BSVHXyOFCP

— Globes גלובס (@globesnews) January 18, 2018

Between the two arrests, he allegedly ordered two of the people who had deposited money on his behalf to lie to police should they be called to give testimony, and to say the cash was meant for business investment or for wedding costs. The two individuals acceded to his request and allegedly lied to investigating officers.

On Thursday, central district prosecutors presented a list of charges which amounted to large-scale corruption spread over several years and which included fixing tenders in return for bribes, laundering funds and not filing reports to the tax authorities as the law demands.

In one case, Reibuch allegedly took tens of thousands of shekels from a civil engineering company and, in return, awarded them the tender for more than NIS 1.2 million ($350,000) worth of engineering works on a project in the central city of Rosh Haayin.

In another case, after an employee in the accounts department showed him invoices from contractors that seemed to be far too high, Reibuch allegedly ordered the employee to approve the payments, costing the ministry an additional NIS 100,000 ($29,000) over what it should have paid. He subsequently put envelopes full of money into the employee’s drawer and told him not to ask any questions.

Reibuch is suspected of having spread the cash he received around various accounts in order to hide it and avoid having to report it to the tax authorities.

It is alleged that Reibuch laundered more than NIS 5.5 million ($1.6 million) through friends and family, and that, in one case, he gave a relative some $870,000 in shekels and dollars, which the relative changed at currency exchange points.

Prosecutors asked for the confiscation of NIS 16 million ($4.7 million) worth of Reibuch’s assets including property and money in various denominations and two cars.

Reibuch’s defense lawyers said the case was inflated and based on subjective evidence submitted by people who wanted to harm their client.

One of the lawyers, Ofer Rahmani, said the original allegations pertaining to tens of millions of shekels effectively related to four accusations of violation in the amount of NIS 200,000 to NIS 300,000 ($58,000 to $88,000). He said Reibuch had good explanations for them all.

Rahmani said the case was “an example of how enforcement agencies can wear down and shred to pieces a person without any basis.”