Fraud police understaffed

Belgium’s prosecutors-general have criticised the acute shortage of resources available to the police units in charge of combating fraud, as criminality increasingly goes upmarket. The insufficient resources mean that no proper strategy can be implemented in the fight against corruption, serious fraud and laundering. “Very often, months pass before an investigation can be launched, and meanwhile, the fraud continues,” they write in their annual report. Moreover, they point out that more and more criminals “reinvent themselves, moving from ‘ordinary’ criminality to a white-collar variety, which is easier to carry out, less risky and yields higher financial rewards”. One example they give is that of private corruption in football, which takes up too much time compared to public corruption. Interior minister Joëlle Milquet concedes that this is a serious problem, but adds that, while last year 38 inspectors specialised in finance and computer fraud were recruited, the figure for this year already stands at 67.