Nochi Dankner (Hebrew: נוחי דנקנר; born 13 November 1954) is an Israeli businessman and a board member of the Jewish Agency for Israel.
[3] In 2017 he was convicted of Securities Fraud for a scheme to inflate his company's stock price in order to raise money when it was struggling financially.
He went to the IDF's officer training course and was placed in air force intelligence for the remainder of his service, which he finished at the rank of captain.
[5] Ganden operated as a holding company in aviation and tourism, and was the 3rd largest group in Israel after El-Al and Knafaim (Wings).
Ganden acquired control of Open Skies, a representative of foreign airlines in Israel and shares in the travel agencies 3rd Millennium, Natour and Unitel.
The acquisition was fully financed by a loan which Melach Industries took from Bank Leumi by using land it owned as collateral.
[8] The land valuation was determined based on an agreement for which Dankner was arrested and questioned on suspicion of bribery and money laundering.
In reality, the value of the land held by Melach Industries was significantly lower than Bank Leumi's estimate, and it is doubtful that the loan would have been approved based on the actual valuation.
Through IDB Holdings Dankner controlled various companies such as Cellcom, Shufersal, Netvision, Hadera Paper and Nesher Cement.
He also had subsequent shares in Clal Insurance and Bank Hapoalim Total worth of companies, controlled by Nochi Dankner was about 400 billion NIS.
Dankner tried to save the control of the company and hired Itay Strum, broker Adi Sheleg and some others to buy and sell IDB stock, causing inflation of prices during a public offering in February 2012.
Judge Khabub's formula of sentencing was: “deemed it appropriate to punish the accused within the lower levels of the appropriate punishment due to the personalities of the accused, their extraordinary philanthropic work and the damages and losses they inflicted on themselves by getting embroiled in this scheme.” His accomplice Itay Strum was also convicted and sentenced to a one-year prison term and a 500000 NIS fine.