The Central District Court sentenced Egg and Poultry Board member Shai Moshe to four years in prison, after he was charged with several counts of bribery, fraud, breach of trust, endangering the public health, and other crimes.
The sentence is part of a widescale affair involving 17 individuals accused of attempting to smuggle uninspected eggs from the Palestinian Authority into pre-1967 Israel, endangering the public health.
Shai Moshe, who served as Information Manager on the Egg and Poultry Board, networked to bring in the unauthorized eggs via dozens of trucks. During the course of 2012, millions of uninspected eggs were smuggled into Israel. The smuggling was methodical, although Moshe's position gave him the authority to prevent eggs from being smuggled from the Palestinian Authority into Israel, as well as to confiscate and destroy smuggled eggs.
Moshe was charged with taking bribes in order to refrain from preventing the smuggling, and was scheduled to begin as a partner in an egg-smuggling organization. In return for his cooperation, Moshe received thousands of shekels each week.
Seventeen individuals have been charged with bribery, fraud, endangering the public health, money laundering, and other crimes, for which they will serve prison sentences. In addition, millions of shekels were confiscated, and the guilty ordered to pay significant fines.
In its ruling, the court wrote that "the actions these people are charged with are very severe. They harm protected social values, including the rule of law, keeping faith, and protecting the public health. All of these values were severely harmed. We must especially consider the fact that these crimes were planned, took place over an extended period of time, and abused Moshe's position of authority as a supervisor and Information Manager. It seems he was acutely aware of the consequences of his actions, since he was trained to prevent them."
The Central District Criminal Prosecutor said that "this ruling signals the end of a widescale affair in which we uncovered an organized and hierarchical criminal network. This network dealt with smuggling unauthorized eggs from the PA to Israel, while committing other crimes such as bribery and money laundering. This network's activities also presented a significant risk to the public and public health."
"The suspect, who was supposed to act as a gatekeeper preventing eggs from being smuggled, trampled on the faith the Israeli public placed in him, choosing to play an active and significant part in the smuggling efforts while risking the public's health and safety, all because of his greed for money."