The public prosecutor’s office in Halle-Vilvoorde and the federal judicial police have uncovered a huge money laundering network. During 13 searches carried out in this judicial district as well as in Brussels, Mons, Walloon Brabant and Charleroi, eight people were arrested on Thursday and placed under arrest warrants. During the searches, police also seized 440,000 euros in cash and blocked 500 bank accounts.
The case began when the Financial Information Processing Unit (CTIF) reported suspicious transactions on a company’s bank accounts to the public prosecutor’s office, public prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Sabine Lievens said on Friday. The CTIF noted that, over a period of 14 months, a total of more than 1.5 million euros was deposited into this company’s accounts. Due to the company’s history and the nature of its operations, it was suspected that money laundering was involved.
The investigation by the Federal Judicial Police revealed an organization involved in both money laundering and the injection of undeclared money into the economy. According to prosecutors, “this organization, managed by people from Brazil and Portugal, was a hub between criminal organizations with a lot of cash and companies that needed cash to pay their undeclared workers”.
Its members operated from an office building located in Offen (Walloon Brabant), where cash funds were collected and redistributed daily. Money laundering involved the organization issuing invoices for services not performed to its “clients”, mainly companies active in the construction sector, who paid them through their bank accounts. The organization reimbursed this money in cash, but deducted a commission. In this way, the companies had “black money” with which to pay others, including workers.
“To justify this flow of cash, several fictitious companies were created,” the prosecution spokesman added. “For this purpose, people were brought from Portugal to work as fronts for the organisation and were designated as “managers” of these fictitious companies. The investigation shows that these money flows amounted to around 50 million euros per year, on which the criminal organisation charged a commission of 8 to 10%.” The investigation culminated on Thursday in 13 searches in Halle-Vilvoorde, Brussels, Mons, Walloon Brabant and Charleroi.
“Eight people were arrested,” said Sabine Lievens. “They were presented before the investigating judge, who placed the eight suspects under arrest warrants, 440,000 euros in cash was also seized during the search and around 500 bank accounts were blocked.” This is not the first time that the Halle-Vilvoorde public prosecutor’s office has got its hands on such an organisation. Last June, the Brussels criminal court sentenced the members and leaders of a criminal organisation that had laundered at least 26.5 million to prison terms of 30 months to 10 years and fines of 80,000 to 200,000 euros for a period of a few years. Business leaders who collaborated with the organisation were in turn sentenced to prison terms of one year to 18 months and fines of 16,000 euros, with their companies being fined 80,000 to 200,000 euros. Earlier, in 2021, a Brazilian-Portuguese criminal organization was sentenced to 15 months to 5 years in prison for providing mainly construction companies with large amounts of black money through shell companies. As part of the ‘Company Dumping’ project, the Brabant Public Prosecutor’s Office is pursuing a proactive policy against this phenomenon and other similar frauds that use bogus invoices from fictitious companies. “This is a cooperation between the local and federal police, the public prosecutor’s office and the labor auditor’s office in Halle-Vilvoorde, the economic and social inspection services, the tax authorities and the company court, within the framework from which all companies that establish themselves in the region are controlled”, explains Sabine Lievens. “When a fictitious character is established, a procedure is initiated to accelerate the dissolution of these fraudulent companies and to remove them from the legal economy. The figures are astonishing, since 1 in 5 controlled companies that are set up in the district are fictitious in nature.”
Money laundering offences