1. The Misplaced Meters Case

2. Unauthorized house connections with IEC standard equipment
2006 biggest fraud case
award
Unauthorized house connections with IEC standard equipment
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3 years ago, one of our house connection teams ran into a new connection that was not carried out by Israel Electric. All equipment parts installed matched our standard and were probably stolen from us. More cases in a close by neighbourhood were exposed. (next slide) 1b

3. job using IEC standard materials Professional hot wire connection job
In all locations the only thing that was still missing were the meters.
We were wondering, what kind of scheme was going on here. I f you plan to steal electricity, why bother and install a meter ? Another day, another case, and we figured out what was going on. (next slide) 2b 33

4. Stolen meters
During last year, we encountered a stolen meters plague. We couldn’t figure out the reason for stealing the meters, until we ran into this location. The house was not built according to its building permit, the owners didn’t get the necessary occupation permit that is mandatory for meter instalment, and final connection to power, and turned to a do it yourself contractor. In Most cases, the tenants are naïve, and believe that the money they pay the contractor is intended for bribing the utility employees. The meter was actually tampered and reset to zero pretending to be new. Usually the first time the meter is exposed, the suspicion rises and the fraud is discovered. We were extremely troubled because this phenomenon was spreading and our reputation deteriorated. New cases were exposed daily, and our security department was asked to act and expose the theft contractors. 3b

5. case closed
The whole network, starting from the dealers soliciting the illegal connection to the so called customer, up to the grid and meter installer, was exposed on December Every person involved in more than 100 illegal connections was arrested. Unfortunately, 3 of our employees are involved too in this operation. 4b 35

6. One of Israel Electric’s connection foreman was arrested as a result of a sting operation. He confessed and directed the police detectives to most of the premises were the illegal connections were executed.
The IEC employee was arrested, minutes after completing his last connection job, at this garage in Nazareth 5b

7. 20 years ago, when I was in charge of the district’s human resources recruiting team, I offered this guy his job. He noticed me out there in Nazareth, taking photos, and was too ashamed and embarrassed to gaze at me.
Suspect accompanied by detectives, identifying illegal connected houses in Nazareth 6b

8. More than 100 stolen meters, were identified as new meters in those illegal connections locations. The police will press charges against all gang members and some of the so called customers. We are billing them for the electricity usage recorded on the meters, and all costs regarding our operations, and getting ready to take to court people that will refuse our billing.
All illegal connections dismantled, and evidence against the gang members and “customers” collected with the police supervision 7b

9. The story is not over yet
250
Stolen
meters
City of
Um El Fahem
We have a reason to believe that 250 brand new meters that were stolen 2 years ago, from a depot in one of our districts will be installed in a similar operation. The city of Um El Fahem is the second biggest Arab town in the northern part of Israel.
The city occupies more then 42,000 citizens, and is fast growing with a huge amount of illegal and barely controlled house building. Since populating and electrifying the brand new buildings requires non existence permits, the road to the illegal connections solution is already paved. 8b