Case Explained: How fraud became a global business at scale – Follow the Money – Legal Perspective

As Donald Trump plunges the Middle East – and the global economy – into chaos (it seems that Qatar’s gift of a luxury plane and UAE investments in his family crypto’s firm have not paid off), Belgium is in shock over an easter egg scam by Mondelez. 

Coming up this week:

• A closer look at Interpol’s recent report on global crime networks
• The latest from France, where no one is safe from corruption probes
• An overview of fraud and graft news, from Albania to Congo

Interpol’s recent report confirmed what many investigators are already seeing on the ground: financial fraud has evolved into a global, corporate-like system. With estimated losses of $442 billion in 2025, Interpol warned that “fraud is one of the most significant threats facing law enforcement”, ranking among the most widespread forms of organised crime globally.

The report singled out several European nations. France and Germany together account for $8 billion in insurance fraud losses. Cyprus and Italy are destination hubs for networks that extort refugees, demanding up to $5,000 in “smuggling fees” and in some cases forcing victims into labour. Meanwhile, the Iberian Peninsula (including Spain and Portugal) was impacted by a $150 million South American crypto-laundering scheme. 

Across Europe, stolen funds are typically moved across borders, passed through multiple intermediary bank accounts, and then dispersed across jurisdictions with limited oversight.

What’s changing is not only the scale, but the structure of these operations. Fraud networks are increasingly looking like legitimate businesses. They are “poly-criminal, highly-organised, skilled and adaptable” and rely heavily on “legal business structures” to move and conceal funds, according to Interpol.

A well-oiled machine: those familiar with recent cross-border VAT fraud cases, for example, know all too well that this model isn’t new. It mirrors the logic of carousel fraud, where criminals can easily set up cross-border companies at low cost and use shell entities to obscure the origin of funds. The difference is speed. AI now empowers criminal networks to expand operations with minimal investment, making them up to “4.5 times more profitable”, the report warned. 

Weak checks on company ownership, combined with limited enforcement capacity, allow illicit profits to flow into the legal economy at a worrying pace.

Exciting move: in a major shift for a jurisdiction long known for its corporate secrecy, the British Virgin Islands is trying to ditch its reputation as a haven for hidden assets. It is tightening its beneficial ownership rules and lowering disclosure requirements. Crucially for journalists, the new rules introduce a “legitimate interest” test in the hope that it could grant media and civil society access to the registry. 

Ultimately, financial fraud is no longer just an economic offence, the report finds. It’s now part of a broader security threat – connected to organised crime, human trafficking, and cybercrime.

Addressing it will require more than raising awareness. It demands structural reform targeting the financial opacity and cross-border gaps that allow these systems to thrive.

Update on Attard proceedings

The immunity case of Daniel Attard is still in full swing after the news of a potential mixup between two namesakes in our last Crime and Corruption. 

In the meantime, we obtained the letter in which Belgian prosecutors clarified their mistake. Main takeaway: the allegations about the other Daniel Attard were not fundamental to the request to lift the immunity of the MEP Daniel Attard. 

Let’s reconstruct:

On 16 April 2025, Belgian prosecutors requested the waiver of Attard’s immunity. On 18 September, in response to a European Parliament request for additional information, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor Ann Fransen wrote that she received additional information.

“New evidence has emerged suggesting that between 2020 and 2025, the individual in question received suspicious sums of money from bank accounts opened in China or Hong Kong. This constitutes further evidence in support of the request for waiver of immunity,” Fransen wrote.

Why does it matter? Because the mistake should not be an obstacle to lifting the immunity, which can be assessed from the original request.

The prosecutor also noted that the confusion originated with the Belgian Financial Intelligence Unit CTIF and that the investigative judge will conduct an additional investigation to “fully clarify this issue and the possible confusion CTIF has taken responsibility for”.

The legal affairs committee will not request any additional information from the Belgian Prosecutors and continue to prepare the report on Attard, which will “very likely” be voted on during the next committee meeting on 15 April 2026, a person with knowledge of the proceedings said. 

Follow the Money also reported last night about the defense of another MEP who is being investigated over his alleged role in Huaweigate: Fulvio Martusciello. 

Last week, a Paris court began hearing the appeal of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the Libyan campaign financing case, France 24 reported. He was sentenced to five years in prison last September (of which he served around 20 days). Sarkozy was accused of having secretly accepted funds from Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to boost his 2007 presidential campaign. The trial is expected to last until June. Sarkozy has denied the charges.

Meanwhile, Sarkozy’s former spokesperson Rachida Dati, who also faces a corruption trial, has lost the Paris mayoral race to socialist candidate Emmanuel Grégoire. Dati resigned as culture minister in February to focus on her Paris campaign. Her trial, which was originally planned for last year, is now set to take place in September. Dati allegedly received €900,000 in “legal services” from the carmaker Renault between 2010 and 2012 while she was serving as an MEP. She is also being investigated in two other cases. Dati has maintained her innocence.

Last but not least, Vincent Bolloré, France’s most powerful media tycoon, has been indicted for bribery of foreign officials. Bolloré, who owns the Canal+ global media conglomerate and magazines such as Paris Match and Le Journal du Dimanche, allegedly undercharged for services on behalf of presidential candidates in Guinea and Togo ‌in exchange for port contracts. Bollore has not publicly commented on the allegations.

Other news

A Dutch shell company linked to Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler has been fined €25.8 million over bribes for mining deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo, our colleague Lukas Kotkamp reported. Experts said that this sum is small compared with the hundreds of millions under wider scrutiny. 

Spain’s anti-corruption prosecutor is seeking a €181.8 million fine against BBVA over allegations the bank hired a former police commissioner’s firm to conduct illegal spying operations between 2004 and 2016. It’s part of a wider probe that has shaken Spain’s corporate sector. 

Prosecution of white-collar crime in the US has been declining since the 1990s and it’s only getting worse under President Donald Trump, professor of political science Marie Gottschalk wrote for Bloomberg.

In Hungary, 13 associates of  Prime Minister Victor Orbán secured a large share of state contracts since he took power in 2010, an investigation by the Financial Times found.

Albania’s specialised anti-corruption prosecutor office SPAK is facing resistance in its attempt to indict former Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku. Parliament refused to lift her immunity and the government is seeking to limit SPAK’s powers.