The former mayor of Waterloo, Serge Kubla, has been prosecuted for money laundering, the weekly Vif/L’Express reported on Wednesday on its website, adding that new searches were conducted in late June at his home and those of members of his family. The scope of the judicial investigation into Kubla’s activities, opened in 2015, was extended after he confessed during questioning that he had laundered money through a Swiss bank account, the weekly explained.
The Reformist Movement, MR, politician had been incarcerated at Saint-Gilles penitentiary in early 2015 after being accused of “corruption involving a person holding public office in a foreign State”, namely a former Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Adolphe Muzito. Kubla reportedly served as intermediary for the Duferco industrial group, which was said to have tried to favour investments in the games and lotteries sector by corrupting Congolese officials.
The investigators investigated Socagexi Ltd., a shell company created in Malta by Serge Kubla and through which he had billed a Duferco company for consultancy fees to the sum of 260,000 euros per year since 2009. They also investigated a Swiss account he opened in Pitchet, a private bank. Kubla had withdrawn hundreds of thousands of euros in cash from the bank through a branch in Luxemburg, Vif/L’Express reported.
Contacted by the weekly, the Office of the Federal Prosecutor confirmed the late-June searches and disclosed that Kubla had been prosecuted for money laundering and conditionally released.
The Brussels Times
