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By: Uri Shitrit
David Rabinovich (fabricated name) knew what he wanted to be when he grew up from the time that he was a little kid. Everything that flew in the sky interested him. Spaceships, satellites, planes without a pilot, UFOs, helicopters, and smart bombs.
As a young, amateur scientist he participated in science after-school activities and devoured all the professional literature dealing with outer space. After his release from the Air Force, he began studying aeronautics at the Technion. Of course. He completed his studies with honors, as is to be expected.
Talent scouts from the aeronautical industry found out about the brilliant student. One meeting with the human resources director of the company was enough to convince him to sign a very tempting contract.
Rabinovich was stationed as a development engineer in one of the companies specializing in rocket development. The years passed. He became a star. His developments were presented at international exhibitions. Clients from all over the world signed fat contracts with the aeronautical industry.
Rabinovich received large bonuses in return, which enriched his bank account. The company encouraged him to meet with every supplier overseas, sent him to present at leading worldwide exhibitions, and didn’t skimp on first class tickets or expensive hotel accommodations.
The aeronautical industry is subject to the supervision and guidance of the Ministry of Defense. In the winter of 1991, intelligence information was received by the National Unit for Fraud Investigations. The information informed them that “David Rabinovich is receiving very large bribes from one of the suppliers of the aeronautical industry. The bribe money is being deposited in a Swiss bank account”. I serviced as the director of the investigation team in the unit at the time. The information was given to me for treatment and investigation.
We began by collecting background information about the suspect. Materials were collected from every possible accessible source. Sources of information were located and enacted as his place of work. We secretly investigated all the factors that could enrich our intelligence information. We discovered that we were dealing with a professional director with an international reputation in his field.
He didn’t lack any professional or personal rivals. His difficult personality and high demands created a tense and unpleasant work environment. The investigation team came to realize that we were dealing with a hard nut to crack. It would not be easy to break him in an interrogation and cause him to confess to the actions allegedly attributed to him.
An additional factor that we knew about was against our favor. From more in-depth investigations that we conducted, we discovered that the bribe money was being deposited in a Swiss bank account. Unlike today, the secrecy of Swiss banks of the time was unbreakable.
Only the account owner could request details about the status of his or her account. We struggled to figure out a way out of this difficult situation. We knew that with a client like this, we would have to take special and sophisticated measures in order to cause him to reveal the activity in the Swiss bank account under his name. How did we eventually crack this tough and self-assured suspect?
After an evaluation of the situation that we conducted based on the collected findings, we learned that our suspect would be willing to talk about the affair as long as he didn’t get caught up in a criminal investigation with all of its personal and public consequences.
With this idea we approached a senior employee in the security forces, who had inspected and observed the suspect’s company in the past and who even knew the suspect personally. The senior employee was let in on the secret and thoroughly instructed how to question and stimulate the suspect to talk.
The meeting between the senior employee and the suspect took place at a secret security facility in central
The suspect understood, for some reason, that if he provided all of the bank statements from the Swiss bank account then he could end the whole episode. At the very worst he would be reprimanded in his personal file. While still at the facility the suspect called the director of the Swiss bank and asked him to fax all of the bank statements. Two days later all the statements were faxed to the security facility.
In the middle of the name we came to the facility and thoroughly examined the statements. To our great surprise, we discovered that one of the company’s international suppliers had deposited a cumulative sum of 500 thousand dollars in the suspect’s account, spread out over six months. We then knew for sure that the initial information we had received was true and concrete.
The question remained, how would we bring him to an investigation and how could we ensure that he wouldn’t go on an additional business trip overseas? Firstly, an injunction was issued in order to prevent him from being able to leave the country. That was the easy part. As for bringing him to be interrogated at the unit offices, a creative solution was found for that as well.
The senior employee from the security forces was guided by us to call the suspect to his office in order to receive the faxes that arrived from
We don’t need to go into detail regarding the shock and amazement experienced by suspect Rabinovich. After he recovered, he understood that he’d fallen into a trap. His facial expression was frozen and signaled the difficulties we could expect in our interrogation. On the way to the unit offices the suspect didn’t say a word.
All possible recording devices had been installed in the vehicle in order to get the initial reaction from the suspect. We arrived at the unit offices. I instructed the team to leave the two of us alone. I closed the door and began the interrogation. I appealed to his cold, sharp logic. I made it clear to him that we had been investigating him for a while - all the necessary information had already been collected and analyzed. The picture was clear.
All that was missing were his explanations and motives for accepting the bribe. In this situation Rabinovich came to realize that it was in his best interest to reveal all the information he had, otherwise, concealing his testimony would not help him in a courthouse in the future.
The suspect requested (and received) a few minutes in order to do some thinking. The minutes passed, and the suspect decided to cooperate. For ten straight hours (with short bathroom breaks) the suspect revealed everything he knew. I transcribed 35 pages of testimony from that initial interrogation. His testimony clarified the motives and circumstances under which he accepted the bribe.
This is a short summary of what the suspect revealed: “I knew a leading supplier from
I decided to go for it. I knew that it was forbidden to make a deal with an exclusive supplier. A few offers from other suppliers should have been presented to the management. I knowingly ignored this rule. The money that I earned was not enough for me. The money that I received from the supplier greatly improved my financial situation”.
At the end of his testimony and after he was presented with all of the incriminating evidence, he expressed regret in order to soften the blow that he knew he would receive in court. “I know I was wrong. I was very sick at the time. The difficult disease greatly affected my use of judgment. I shouldn’t have been tempted to accept the supplier’s offer. I got tangled in a mess from this whole affair…” Rabinovich was presented by good attorneys in court, but this was not sufficient.
The court was not impressed by his conveyance of regret at all. The hard evidence presented made its mark in court. David Rabinovich was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment. An appeal to the Supreme Court did not help, and the punishment remained.