2023-11-19 06:36:29
Qatargate, Kazakhgate, Nethys, Kubla, Sky-ECC… behind the biggest Belgian legal cases of the last ten years, a federal police service has gained power: the Central Office for the Suppression of Corruption. Reporting.
It is a bland carpeted corridor bristling with offices, well secured at its entrance by a badge door, nestled in the heart of the huge liner of the federal police, this building at 202 rue Royale where 2,000 police officers work. The corridor is dark, but from the bay windows of the offices, the view of the center of Brussels is breathtaking. It is there, on the 7th floor, that work the 65 police officers of the Central Office for the Repression of Corruption (OCRC)a straw out of the 50,000 in the country.
It is also here that the most important legal cases in the country were born and where progress is being made – not quickly enough, say its critics. Kazakhgate, Avrox, Nethys, Mitrocash, and, more recently, Qatargate. So many investigations that make many powerful people in Belgium tremble. We’ve come a long way since 2014, when its workforce was slashed and its police officers were wondering who was so angry with them.
©Kristof Vadino
In the commissioner’s small office Hugues Tasiaux – the interim boss for more than six years –, a desk, a table, four chairs, a few souvenirs from an already long career, a coffee maker running at full capacity and a string of cardboard files. It is there that he receives L’Echo in the company of one of his section heads, the commissioner Luc Meuter.
A free-wheeling discussion follows, in which there will be no question of the substance of the files, covered by the secrecy of the investigation. On the other hand, it will be a question of retracing a police history, almost archeology as the constabulary has been transformed since the merger of the police and the gendarmerie. Tasiaux and Meuter, moreover, are former gendarmes, specialized in “ecofin”economic and financial investigations, the core business of the OCRC.
“Making a police service dependent on politics was not tenable”
“Before 2001 and the reform of the integrated police, the service was called ‘Higher Control Committee’. It depended on the Prime Minister and was very linked to the political world. And then came the Agusta-Dassault affair.” Considered by a number of police officers and magistrates as the matrix of disenchantment and defunding of financial criminal justice, this corruption case surrounding the purchase of combat helicopters by Belgium has seen a series of senior political leaders (Guy Spitaels , Guy Coëme, Willy Claes…) to be sentenced in 1998. “That’s when we understood that making a police service dependent on politics was not tenable,” summarizes Tasiaux.
Time for the major reform decided in the wake of the Dutroux fiasco, which saw the gendarmerie disappear. Then the OCRC and its sister service were born, the OCDEFO, the Central Office for the fight once morest organized economic and financial delinquency. A whole series of police officers of a new type then arrive. Former gendarmes, financial experts, former judicial police close to the public prosecutor’s office, strategic analysts, IT experts, and even a court clerk. “At the time, the OCRC was interested in subsidy and public procurement fraud“, asks Luc Meuter.
“One of my investigators working on the Nethys affair was offered a job by large auditing firms.”
The Office strengthened itself in the 2010s with a series of investigators from the “pool de Jumet”, then headed by Hugues Tasiaux, under the authority of the late Advocate General of Brussels Jean-Claude Leys. The aim of the pool was to follow the Carolo files and “clean the Augean stables”, points out the boss. There were results, including the conviction of the former president of the airport, Edmée De Groeve. After internal pressure on the pool, which then resulted in a civil conviction from the federal police, Hugues Tasiaux arrived in Brussels, at the OCRC. It’s 2013.
But the best is not yet to come. The Swedish coalition comes to power, cuts are made in the justice and police budgets and departures within the service are no longer replaced. The workforce is reduced to 29 police officers. In addition, several financial investigators from the department are busy with terrorist files from 2014 to 2017. There is not enough time to process the rest of the files.
©Kristof Vadino
And then came the Nethys affair, the one which surely changed a lot of things for this understaffed service in search of progress. With the arrests and placement in detention, confirmed by the courts, of major figures in Liège political and economic life such as Stéphane Moreau or François Fornieri, the OCRC has once once more placed itself at the center of the game. And was able to recruit experienced people. “We put facts into perspective that others had not perceived. Following this, the director of the federal judicial police (who has since become commissioner general) Eric Snoeck spoke to politicians, and he opened places at the “OCRC in its own envelope,” notes Tasiaux.
“A large number of bosses”
“Above all, we are more efficient today because white-collar criminals leave more traces than before. There are clues everywhere, in your cell phone, your travels…”
The OCRC was able to recruit a new generation of investigators with varied profiles. Which? A former journalist, a Belgian-Lebanese speaking perfect English and Arabic, accountants, lawyers, economists who calculate ebitda and capex… “One of my investigators working on the Nethys affair was offered a job by large auditing firms,” boasts Hugues Tasiaux. A cold-blooded request that was refused, loyalty to public service was stronger.
With files related to football or Sky-ECC, the OCRC has therefore scored points. By improving its methods, by seizing property. “We are above all more efficient today, because the white-collar criminal leaves more traces than before. There are clues everywhere, in your mobile phone, your travels…”, summarizes Hugues Tasiaux. The service even has its own telephone listening post, a few meters from the offices.
They are “good, but sometimes too enthusiastic. A little restraint would sometimes be more efficient and would give less of the feeling of exclusively incriminating investigations.”
And what do their opponents say? As for lawyers specializing in financial criminal law, the comments are rather laudatory. For Denis Bosquet, lawyer for Serge Kublawho generally does not hold his tongue in his pocket when it comes to criticizing police investigations, “with the means they have, it is difficult to do better”. Laurent Kennes, lawyer for Qatargate “repentant” Antonio Panzeri, evokes a “beautiful institution” and praises their “professionalism and their humanity”, “far from repressive clichés”. Another big name in the bar, experienced in financial matters, finds that they are “good, but sometimes too enthusiastic. A little restraint would sometimes be more efficient and would give less feeling of exclusively incriminating investigations“.
Exhaustion, patience and stress
A success, therefore, which means that today, the service must respond to many clients, namely the magistrates. “We must report to a large number of bosses who are the five prosecutors general, the federal prosecutor and the European prosecutor, not to mention the investigating judges. Our unit must be present for all of them.”
This is where the problem lies and where teeth begin to grind. Because by accumulating mammoth files, working hours become rarer and certain files are sidelined or left to other police services less experienced in the mysteries of financial investigation.
“We were very disappointed, at the Brussels public prosecutor’s office, when the OCRC was sucked into Qatargate, with the result that all our files were frozen.”
“They have resources that we don’t have elsewhere, but we were very disappointed, at the Brussels prosecutor’s office, when the OCRC was sucked into Qatargate, with the result that all our files were frozen “We lost a year in many investigations. I am very bitter regarding it, even if it is not linked to the OCRC itself, but to the functioning of financial criminal justice”, judges a substitute harshly. from the Brussels public prosecutor’s office, on condition of anonymity. Investigating judge Michel Claise, who headed the investigation into suspicions of corruption within the European Parliament, moves the debate: “Files have been blocked, it is true, but this is the very characteristic of a lack of resources”, decides the investigating judge Michel Claise. Retiring on December 31, the famous magistrate led a number of cases with this police service, notably the Kubla, football and Qatargate cases.
The “Follow the money” transversal method
And it is an understatement to say that this latest case has exhausted the troops, while the legality of the investigation has been called into question by defense lawyers and will be studied by the indictment chamber in Brussels next spring. “I have investigators who, as part of this investigation, worked nine months of overtime in less than a year. Of course there is exhaustion. Mea culpa, the hierarchy should have put a stop to it. Some mightn’t stand the pressure, people of great human quality who asked to get back into traffic. An ‘ecofin’ investigator must have resilience, patience and tolerate a dose of stress”, recognizes Hugues Tasiaux.
Hence the need to spare the troops and choose your battles, targeting issues that can bring big returns. This is the transversal “Follow the money” method targeted by the federal judicial police. “It is a global approach. It is estimated that 95% of existing crime has the sole aim of enrichment. The first axis of our method aims to have investigators who have sufficient background to carry out complex financial investigations. To do this, they must be trained to prepare for complex hearings while facing extremely efficient lawyers,” warns Benoit Wolterspecial advisor to the Director General of the Federal Police, responsible for the Follow the Money method.
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