Frenchman sentenced to 4 years in prison for fraud in Belgium

A French entrepreneur was sentenced to five years in prison, including four years in Belgium for having embezzled two million euros of public aid put in place to compensate for the forced cessation of activity linked to the first confinement, in spring 2020. The federal prosecutor's office, which oversaw the investigation, confirmed the information revealed Thursday by the Belgian newspaper

.

The respondent, aged 46, graduated from a major business school, the newspaper said.

The sentence, negotiated with the fraudster under a so-called "plead guilty" procedure, was validated Wednesday by the Brussels Criminal Court.

29 shell companies

This Frenchman living in Belgium is the main protagonist of a vast fraud against “corona aid”, which consisted in claiming unemployment benefits for bogus employees of equally fictitious companies.

He had thus created 29 companies, "empty shells" according to the federal prosecutor's office, and collected the money in various bank accounts opened under false identities.

The amount of fraud amounts to two million euros.

The fraudster will have to partially reimburse this amount via a seizure of goods.

Several investigations opened

Faced with the emergency situation created by the sudden cessation of activity for many workers due to the coronavirus, the Belgian government allowed in mid-March 2020 to assert the right to unemployment benefits through a simple declaration online, recalls the newspaper

.

Several fraud investigations have been opened in various prosecutors' offices across the country, suggesting trials to come soon.

In December 2020, the Belgian police had carried out around thirty searches, in particular in the region of Charleroi (south), as part of an investigation carried out in collaboration with the social security and unemployment insurance administrations.

According to

, 15 people were imprisoned following this vast operation, including the French entrepreneur now condemned.

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• Fraud

• Aid

• Jail

• World

• Coronavirus

• Belgium

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