2023-12-01 15:02:00
Forgery, use of forgery, fraud, money laundering… Seven men and a woman were to appear before the criminal court on Friday morning to answer for these crimes committed to the detriment of the FPS Finances. There were only three of them. We are talking regarding more than a million euros which almost escaped the Belgian state. The case dates back to 2015.
The lawyer for the FPS Finances explains that three registration offices were screwed over, two in Mons and one in Tournai. “Several slips have been modified. La Poste realized the problem, stopped the doubtful transactions and informed the FPS Finances,” explains the lawyer. Ultimately, the State’s damage is limited to… 14,000 euros!
Different profiles
According to the lawyer, a member of La Poste staff must have had access to the falsified slips, but this individual might not be identified. The people accused in this case are only intermediaries, who would have agreed to receive the embezzled sums on their account.
One is the manager of a construction company, another says he runs a hairdressing salon, a last says he is an agent for football players, but not in the professional world. Several thousand euros, from 80 to 100,000, arrived by magic in their bank account or in their company account. Cards would have passed through several hands.
Extras
The public prosecutor compares this affair to a film, “except that here we only have extras involved in a well-organized international scam”.
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The deputy prosecutor adds: “The little soldiers, whose mission was to collect the amount of the offense and dilute it elsewhere, must not trivialize this type of fact. They participated in one way or another in cleaning up this scam”.
The prosecution notes that each of the defendants gives the same speech in this case, playing the innocent, the naive, “but no one worried regarding the origin of this money”.
Ban on running a business
Some accounts were opened solely for the cause, specifies the public prosecutor. Identities were also stolen. “Each agreed to take part, with full knowledge of the facts, providing assistance in the commission of the offense,” continues the prosecution, which regrets that the investigation was incomplete.
The public prosecutor wishes to send a message to the extras, some of whom are actors in economic life as independent workers.
Their statements on Friday in court frightened the deputy king’s prosecutor. A ban on running a business is requested, as well as eight-month prison sentences, suspended, once morest all of the defendants.
Eight years later…
Me Dufrane deflates the case by invoking in particular the exceeding of the reasonable time limit to judge this case, eight years following the closure of the case. The admissibility of the proceedings is also put forward by the lawyer, who considers that a simple question of guilt would be adequate in the event of the guilt of all the defendants.
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Me Henrion pleads that his client did not open a bank account to commit the offense, “the bank proves it”. She adds that lending your bank card to a third party is not an offense. An acquittal is pleaded for his client.
Me Bongiorno defends a shareholder who owned half of a company in 2015, whose name appeared on a falsified slip. “He did not look following the bank accounts and did not hold the card. His partner has since died. However, the latter declared that it was he alone who managed the company’s bank accounts and he informed him of a sum of 125,000 euros arriving in the company’s account, then returned to the sender . In 2016, the defendant left the company, which was dissolved in 2018. He is not an actor, he is collateral damage in this case.
Me Glorieux says the same thing for the woman who sold her shares to Me Bongiorno’s client.
Judgment in January.
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