The federal prosecutor’s office on Monday sought prison terms of 7 and 8 years for three men it sees as the leaders of an international money laundering group.
Sentences ranging from 24 months to five years in prison were requested for about 20 other defendants who, according to the federal prosecutor’s office, played a key role in the criminal organisation, which made several million euros in a few years.
The federal prosecutor’s office divided the case into two parts. The first was entrusted to a Brussels investigating judge. The second was investigated in Mons.
The suspects’ used a common modus operandi: taking control of commercial activities that had no real value and placing front men with false identities at their head. Bank accounts were then opened, on the basis of false documents, with the aim of laundering dirty money.
In the first case, a former insurance broker was suspected of being at the helm. The photo of this man, manager of a fictitious company, was on several documents, with different identities.
“This man was monitored and bugged. We then realised that his network was international, he had contacts with the Italian mafia, construction slave traders, drug traffickers, etc.,” the federal prosecutor said.
Large sums of money passed through accounts between Belgium, France, Germany, Turkey, China and then Hong Kong.
In the case investigated in Mons from 2019, it was another company that found itself in the authorities’ sights. Based in a business centre, it had no known activity, but had invested in expensive computer equipment and had tried to dupe several notaries and two lawyers in drafting real estate sales agreements.
At the heart of this case, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office identified a former banker, who has since died. The man was known to the authorities for several scams.
Finally, an attempted cryptocurrency scam was uncovered by the federal prosecution service. The name of the former banker and the photo of the former broker were found during an investigation conducted between Belgium and Malta.
The next two Mondays will be devoted to the pleadings of the lawyers for the civil parties and the defence.
