The Brussels Appeal court has confirmed an important member of an international criminal organisation was convicted on the 11th of October. They were given 8 years in prison and had 1,600,000 euros and luxury cars confiscated. This was confirmed by the Prosecutor’s office on Saturday. In Belgium, the suspect was mostly responsible for laundering illegally obtained money through cash transfers (more than 68,000,000) to other countries.
The investigation was opened after Belgian police received a tip-off from Dutch authorities back in April 2015. The case was made a priority by the ‘economic, financial, fiscal and environmental crime’ unit. This unit is made up of magistrates from the Prosecutor’s office and four Brussels Instance courts. The case will be dealt with by the same magistrate while before the Court of First instance and the appeal court.
The main suspect was immediately remanded in custody. The co-accused were also given heavy sentences by the Brussels Correctional Tribunal, of which one was confirmed by the Appeal court. A total of 950,000 euros was seized during the investigation.
(Source: Belga)
