The Tax Authority and police have arrested 19 suspects suspected of trading gold from Judea and Samaria to Israel and suspected of money laundering and tax evasion worth more than half a billion shekels.
The investigation revealed that gold merchants from Israel were buying gold from traders in Ramallah, processing it in factories, making jewelry and exporting the gold abroad, while the suspects taxed and laundered the money with false documentation, using a fictitious accounting cover of "straw" companies and existing companies.