State to probe claims Mossad chief received gifts from Packer

A top security official who later became the head of the Mossad intelligence agency received expensive tickets to a Mariah Carey concert from her then-fiance, billionaire Australian businessman James Packer, Channel 10 reported Tuesday.

Packer has emerged as a key figure in ongoing corruption investigations into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Arnon Milchan, a Hollywood producer who also figures prominently in the investigations of Netanyahu, and Packer are friends and have mutual business interests. The Haaretz daily reported that in 2015 Milchan and Packer tried wooing Cohen to join a global security firm called Blue Sky International, which was started by Milchan in 2008. The businessmen wanted Cohen to take up a partnership in a cybersecurity project. At the time, Cohen was head of the National Security Council and in December 2015 Netanyahu selected him to lead the Mossad, putting the kibosh on Milchan and Packer’s offer.

The development in Cohen’s case came after the Civil Service Commission in December began looking into reports that months before he took up the position as director of Israel’s spy agency, he had received from Packer tickets worth thousands of shekels to attend a Carey concert in central Israel in August 2015....

http://www.timesofisrael.com/state-to-look-into-claims-mossad-chief-received-gifts-from-packer/