IDF vet who helped conquer Kotel in 1967 arrested for suspected tax evasion

Ze'ev Parnas, one of the Paratrooper veterans who took the Western Wall in the Six Day War, was arrested on Tuesday by the Tax Authority on suspicion of tax evasion of millions of shekels that he earned from the renewable energy sector.

Parnas, aged 78 and a resident of Kfar Baruch, denied the crime he was accused of and said in his interrogation that he has no control over his finances. He also explained that he was entitled to $50 million for services he provided outside of Israel and requested that the money be transferred to his bank account in Israel.

Even so, the Tax Authority investigators said that Parnas' claims were untrue and the source of the money was his work in different voluntary organizations around the world.

The Shalom court in Haifa released Parnas with limiting conditions at a bail of NIS 100,000.

Parnas is the second case of tax evasion this week

On Sunday, Ben Ben Horin, a graphic designer from Tel Aviv who creates and sells NFT digital art, was arrested on suspicion of not reporting income totaling approximately NIS three million from selling NFT and not reporting the conversion of 30 Itrium digital coins that he got as payment for his creations.

Ben Horin creates and sells NFTs on the international Opensea platform under the brand WUWA. His interrogation revealed that as part of a report to the tax authorities in 2021, the suspect did not report any of the income from the sales on the platform.