Belgian judge Michel Claise has more than 20 years of experience working as an investigating magistrate, and is specialised in financial crime, notably money laundering. His past, high-profile investigations have led to the convictions of numerous influential figures, and he has on several occasions been placed under police protection.
He became nicknamed in the Belgian media as “Monsieur 100 millions”, in reference to the supposed amount of money his investigations regularly brought back into the state coffers, and which include an out-of-court settlement reached by prosecutors with the HSBC bank, accused of tax fraud and money laundering, amounting to close to 300 million euros.
The 61-year-old is currently leading the investigation into the vast corruption scandal that has rocked the European Parliament, in which Morocco and Qatar are suspected of organising a cash-for-influence network involving the bribery of chamber members.
Following raids ordered by Claise on the homes and offices of members of the Parliament and others associated with them, when vast sums of cash were found, a now former vice-president of the EU parliament, Eva Kaili, is held in provisional detention, along with her partner and parliamentary aide, Francesco Giorgi, a former member of the parliament now head of a human rights NGO, Pier Antonio Panzeri, and Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, an activist with another rights NGO.
In the latest development in the snowballing scandal, Panzeri last week struck a deal with Belgian prosecutors in which he has agreed to reveal the details of the bribery network in exchange for a reduced prison sentence.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Claise agreed to meet with Mediapart earlier this month in France, on the condition that he was asked no questions about the European Parliament probe or any other ongoing case, which as an investigating magistrate he is professionally bound to keep confidential.
But he had no reservations in expounding on the cause that drives him both as a magistrate and as the somewhat unlikely author of several novels, namely the fight against corruption and organised crime, which he warns is “devouring” European society on an ever greater scale.
“When you touch on dirty money, and when that involves the political world, people become transformed into wild animals,” he says in the interview below with Rachida El Azzouzi and Ludovic Lamant. Claise is also scathing of the lack of resources he and his colleagues, both in the judiciary and the police, have at their disposal, despite what he sees as the exponential growth of criminal organisations which he argues, with concrete examples, is the result of a lack of political resolve to grasp the problem.
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Mediapart: You have said that ‘dirty money’ is present everywhere in the European economy. Do you believe that corruption is more present today than it was 20 years ago?
Michel Claise: Absolutely. There is an aggravation of this phenomenon. The operating system of criminal organisations is today expanded by new technologies. The second phenomenon is the enormous wealth that is created from goods trafficking.
One can take the prominent example of drugs traffickers. In Belgium, at the port of Antwerp alone, cocaine represents between 10% and 20% of the annual total sum of imports. Other ports across the European Union [EU] are affected – Le Havre in France, but also Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
You can add to that other drugs, which represent very large amounts. For example, it is estimated that the yearly laundering of [profits from] cannabis resin coming from the Rif [region] in Morocco involves ten – possibly 15 – billion [euros]. Add again counterfeiting, which is essentially coming from China, and which travels through those ports already cited. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates [the value of] counterfeit products imported into the European Union totals a yearly 300 billion [euros].
Another form of criminality, cybercrime, is in the process of devouring us. Thanks to it, criminal organisations are making monstruous profits. It goes from hacking into accounts, to the tune of between 2,000 and 3,000 euros, all the way to significant amounts; cybercrime alone [makes] 350 million euros per year in the EU. These are not my figures but those of the World Bank. Add to this arms trafficking, [and] traditional frauds.
Mediapart: What are EU member states doing to fight these problems? Do you think their strategies are up to the mark?
M.C.: The enormous sums I am speaking of are yearly totals – imagine this on a scale of several years. When money is laundered, it continues to bring in a profit, and this is not controlled. In his essay, A Brief History of the Future, Jacques Attali [editor’s note, a French senior civil servant, former presidential advisor and economic and social affairs theorist] wrote that “One day, illicit businesses will have stolen a lead on lawful businesses’.
I think we have already been living with that for a certain number of years. In my various presentations – and I did so again before the justice committee of the [Belgian] federal Parliament – I repeat over and again that an inventory must absolutely be made. Why? Because there is political incompetence and an incomprehension on the part of citizens who are unable to materialise the importance of the phenomenon.
For this, one must go about things like for the other cancer facing our society today, namely climate disruption [global warming]. The economic disruption caused by financial crime must be the object of a study into all the consequences it leads to, bringing together sociologists, economists, and criminologists.
I’ll give you an example of the monstruous impact. One of the EU member states, Italy, is gangrened by mafia groups loaded with cash, and which buy up, one after the other, all the companies which collapse – 50% of the economy is currently owned by mafia groups like the ’Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra, etc. This became even worse with the Covid crisis and, previously, with the 2008 [financial] crisis.
I very sincerely believe that there is no political will to take the seriousness of the situation into account. Some people try to make me say that this is because politicians are themselves corrupt. I don’t think so, not in Europe in any case. But they become accomplices in this situation by not taking it into consideration.
Mediapart: Since March 2021, and the case of the Sky ECC messaging app used by underworld gangs and which was cracked by the Belgian and Dutch police, leading to the dismantling of a cartel of cocaine traffickers, the arrests of 1,230 people and the seizure of drugs worth a street price of 13 billion euros, the political class, in Belgium and the Netherlands, does appear to have begun opening its eyes to the problem.
M.C.: With this case, we suddenly realised, in Belgium and the Netherlands, that we are completely devoured by criminal organisations. We realised, for the first time, that corruption affects every level in society – such as civil servants. Now, this affair is the proof of what we, the professionals, have never stopped calling out for years. Little by little, it enters the heads of the politicians who – with elections [for the Belgian federal parliament] coming up in 2024 –say to themselves that they cannot ignore the problem.
I recently had the chance to meet two politicians on the set of a television programme. The first said to me: “One must take note that the situation is serious.” I replied, “It’d be about time”. The second said: “Something really should be done.” I replied: “The simple fact of using the conditional [tense] is to be complicit in this situation.” I told him, “Something must be done”. He said to me: “But in terms of the budget, it’s too late, one must wait that…” I cut him off: “Do you realise the enormity of what you are saying? To carry out controls in the port of Antwerp, there are six high-performance scanners. Twenty are needed. What are you waiting for to buy 14?”.
You then get an embarrassed silence. I also had a little set-to with the [Belgian] prime minister, Alexander De Croo, because I had voiced this opinion before the sky EEC affair broke, and before the [September 2022] kidnap threats against our justice minister, Vincent Van Quickenborne. The prime minister had been tackled by a journalist from [broadcaster] RTL Belgique over my comment that, ‘The situation now becomes untenable in terms of corruption’. He replied: ‘Let him prove it!’ It’s now one year later. What more does he need?
Mediapart: Your justice minister is still being kept in a safe house. In the Netherlands, Prime Minister Mark Rutte has been placed under heightened security protection as has also Dutch Crown Princess Amalia.
M.C.: It is not a quiescent conflict but truly a war that has been declared by the drug traffickers, which is why there has been a rise in the awareness among the political class. But it’s slow, terribly slow. It’s not in proportion to the situation. I don’t believe that the feeling of impunity and the current violence of criminals is because they might be surrounded and hunted, notably since the dismantling of Sky ECC, but rather from the fact that they have reached an enormous financial power.
Mediapart: Is it too late to smash this criminal progression?
To smash the trafficking, a maximum amount of money must be seized and the circulation of money must be prevented. There must be a reinforcement of controls in the ports, carrying out evidential surveillance of dockers, employees of customs and administrative services, because without them drugs cannot come in. The professionals in money laundering must also be prosecuted because trafficking only prospers if the money is laundered.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
It is not only the gangsters who must be hunted but also the tax advisers, the lawyers, the accountants, the bankers – even though we have solid control systems like TRACFIN in France and the CTIF in Belgium. In short, all those who take part in ‘making dirty money clean’, as according to the principle of Al Capone, who invested his business cash in Laundromats in Chicago.
There must also be education regarding the use of drugs. Cocaine has become fashionable, with consumers from particularly wealthy circles who fatten up criminal organisations. Concerning hard drugs, why not consider that the person who consumes [them] is part of the criminal network, given that they enrich it? I know I cause shock by saying that, but the best way of fighting against child pornography has been to criminalise the clients. From time to time, apart from education, the fear of being caught can play a role.
Mediapart: In an interview you declared that a case like Sky ECC “is exceptional” and “an extraordinary piece of luck”. You have said that you “lead a war using catapults against people who are extremely equipped”. What are the means you have at your disposal in Belgium?
M.C.: The means we dispose of are firstly international. The creation of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, for financial affairs, represents an advance. There are seven European [Union] judges in Belgium. I am one of them. I look after the francophone part of the jurisdiction of the Brussels court of appeal. I am on the frontline to see the baby begin to walk, even run. There are formidable tools like Europol and Eurojust, police and justice collaborations based in The Hague.
Beyond that, at a national level in Belgium, we are witnessing a retreat. In 2015, a minister [editor’s note, then interior minister and deputy prime minister Jan Jambon, from the New Flemish Alliance party] had even decided to axe the Central Office for the Fight Against Economic and Financial Organised Crime – my military arm! But why did he do that? He didn’t even inform himself – and that when we were at the time obtaining results in the fight against VAT ‘carousel’ fraud.
Fortunately, we were so up in arms then that he back-peddled. But we had to step up, in the media, in Parliament, and we succeeded. Happily, because otherwise it would have been a catastrophe. The national resources in Belgium are diminishing. On the other hand, the resources of criminal organisations are on the rise, whether that be pure cybercrime or the use of the cyberworld to help with any illegal activity. It’s popping, it’s growing, it’s frightening, and in this field our numbers of police remain the same, and our means insufficient.
The danger that we are up against is terrible. There’s not a day without a large hacking scandal. I’m talking about things that are very big. Think of bitcoins, which is virtual money used for money laundering, which we haven’t yet truly found a means of controlling. In several cases, I desperately look for police officers [to carry out investigations] and I don’t get them. I ask the federal judicial police to provide me with investigators, and for half of my cases I’m told, ‘We don’t have the numbers’.
Mediapart: How can you carry out investigations in such conditions?
M.C.: I often say this in interviews: we are chasing Porsches with [Citroën] 2CVs. There’s no point in running the race. The art of pursuing them is the art of creating traffic jams.
Mediapart: Your name is associated with investigations that have led to the imprisonment of influential people, from the world of politics, sport and business. How do you avoid being discouraged when you engage in such heavy battles for so long?
M.C.: There are successes, for sure, but a whole lot of cases end up being dismissed for want of resources. What keeps me going is that I enjoy it, it’s really fascinating. I have met fantastic people, among my [judicial] colleagues but also the specialised police with whom I work, clever and human. The police is not only about punch-ups!
I have been an investigating magistrate for 22 years. For me, it is really necessary to inform citizens. Which is why I also chose a literary path. One day, I said to my publisher, ‘I’m going to do a detective novel about carousel fraud’. She wasn’t convinced. It became a success, the book is now sold out. I had two messages to send out. The first was ‘Don’t try it’. The second was that truth can be stranger than fiction. In 2010 I wrote another, Souvenirs du Rif [Memories of the Rif], this time about money laundering techniques in drug trafficking. Six years later, a similar case came into my hands – I was caught up by reality.
Mediapart: Among the most prominent investigations you have led is that into HSBC, accused of tax fraud and money laundering, which ended in 2019 with the bank agreeing to pay an out-of-court settlement of close to 300 million euros to the Belgian state, a record sum for such a case in Belgium.
M.C.: In Belgium we have a ‘Penal Transaction Law’ which allows for the buying back of a legal ‘virginity’ by paying out. One can consider that the system is a rupture with [a principle of] equality because according to whether you are powerful or poor, sentences will render you white or black, as [17th-century French fabulist] La Fontaine put it, but it’s a wrong that nevertheless allows to obtain a little bit of good.
There remains a problem. Currently, penal transaction [a financial settlement with prosecutors which avoids a court case] is only negotiated by the public prosecution services. The investigating magistrate is not involved. Our judicial system is so poor in terms of means, of consideration, that the negotiations are carried out with a gun aimed at the temple of the prosecution services instead of it being pointed at the temple of those facing prosecution. The amounts of the fines and the damages paid to civil parties [plaintiffs] must be raised. Some of the sums appear enormous, yet they remain but the eye of a needle in comparison to the phenomenon.
Mediapart: Are you worried about the consequences for the democratic system, for the rule of law?
M.C.: Absolutely. Why are these criminal organisations so powerful? One thing, as I’ve told you, are the figures [of financial gains]. Secondly, they operate with a whole series of professionals and people who are outside of the organisations but who, finally, are going to be associated with them on a legal level. It’s the whole system of money laundering. Corruption is private, but it is also public.
It becomes fundamental to react proportionately to the immensity of the problem, and it is our role to raise awareness. In Belgium, we [magistrates] have a greater freedom of expression than French magistrates; not in talking about [the details of] our cases – we would be immediately sacked – but with regard to European jurisprudence. Magistrates have an obligation to denounce anti-democratic situations.
In Belgium, the investigating magistrate has more power than in France, where a wing of the investigative process has been removed by the creation of the ‘juge des libertés et de la détention’ [editor’s note, ‘judge for release and detention’, a magistrate who notably decides, after a hearing, whether a person in preventive detention, or held in custody for questioning, should be released or not].
But I envy France on certain points. I am a member of the GRECO [a Council of Europe body monitoring countries’ compliance with anti-corruption policies] and, in the capacity of an expert, I was appointed in 2019 to evaluate France. I met with the chief of staff of President Macron, with the head of the French police, with the most senior civil servants, and I found that in France, contrary to Belgium which is lagging far behind in the fight against corruption, there was really, on a legislative level, an extremely interesting movement, in particular the ‘Sapin laws’ that followed the Cahuzac affair.
You [France] created the French Anti-corruption Agency, the financial crime branch of the public prosecution services, and some of us experts on the justice committee of the House of Representatives [Belgian lower house of Parliament] in Brussels are pushing for the creation of a financial crime branch of the prosecution services in Belgium – preferably more independent than that in France.
When you touch on dirty money, and when that involves the political world, people become transformed into wild animals. In my career, I have encountered some trouble with the political world, but not in terms of pressure. Independence is still utterly total.
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- The original text of this interview with Michel Claise in French can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse