Israeli tech firm boss resigns amid speculation he’s a wanted man

The boss of a big Israeli technology company listed in London resigned this week after his past caught up with him – and with it the prospect of justice.

Oozi Cats, the chief executive of Telit, stepped down after he was revealed to be same man as Uzi Katz, indicted in the United States 25 years ago for property fraud.

Together with an associate and his wife Ruth, he was indicted by a district court in Boston in 1992 over allegations of wire fraud, but the couple slipped the country before the plea hearing.

In 2000, under the name Oozi Cats, he set up Telit, which specialises in ‘the Internet of Things, (IoT),’ supplying Tesla among others. The firm was valued at £500 million earlier this year, before poor trading figures and news of the drama sent the share price crashing.

That may not matter to Cats, who cashed in his chips in May this year, selling his seven million personal shares in the company and bagging £24 million in the process. Finance director Yosi Fair also sold £1.5 million of shares last month.

Telit has in the past received millions of euros in research funding from the Italian government, after it bought an Italian company. This may have prompted an investigation by Italian newspaper il Fatto Quotidiano, whose allegations were first published last week.