Fugitive tech boss pocketed £25m from firm

a CHiEF executive ousted over allegations he was on the run from Us law enforcement made £24.5m from the tech firm he founded.

Oozi Cats yesterday resigned as the boss of telit Communications after he and wife ruth were linked to a string of socalled ‘land flip’ scams carried out in Boston, Massachusetts, in the early 1990s by an Uzi and ruth Katz.

the 56-year-old’s resignation was announced to the stock market yesterday after a swift internal probe, with bosses claiming they knew nothing of historic allegations of fraud made against him.

the Mail can reveal that Cats took £24.5m pay and bonuses from telit over 13 years. Over that same period telit only made £65m profit.

the Cats were accused of trying to scam lenders with bogus mortgage applications which vastly overvalued properties, according to court doc- uments. the alleged fraud in 1991 attracted the attention of special agents from the FBi and was due to be examined in a trial involving 20 witnesses.

But only ruth Katz ever appeared in court – pleading not guilty – and the couple later fled the states.

telit yesterday said solicitors had concluded Cats and Katz were the same person. Cats’ wife has the same birth date as the ruth Katz named in court documents, the Mail understands, and he has not denied he is the person named in an indictment.

Professor anne Hassett, who teaches law in new york and said she represented Katz, told the Mail the case ended because her client was ‘no longer in the district’.

Cats has only spoken to telit executives by phone in the past week. He is understood to have returned to his home in rome. He could not be reached for comment last night.