Court charges second lawyer in FNG investigation

The public prosecutor’s office announced this in a statement in which it also gives a state of affairs.

The most important news is that lawyer David Lust from Ruiselede was placed under suspicion. He did the controversial constructions according to our information. Lust was already on the trail of this newspaper a few months ago (DS June 23). Last week there were house searches at Lust. Lust was the lawyer. In addition to the lawyer who appeared in controversial constructions of FNG, there were also the accountants of the Bofidi firm who were involved.

The Antwerp public prosecutor’s office says that on July 13, 2020 it opened the judicial investigation into possible fraudulent practices surrounding the FNG group, and more specifically possible facts of forgery in writings and use, forgery in the annual accounts and use, misuse of corporate assets, market manipulation, the prevent the investigation of the stock market watchdog FSMA and the laundering of illegally obtained assets.

The investigating judge Theo Byl works together with the Central Service for the Fight against Organized Economic and Financial Delinquency (CDGEFID) and the Federal Judicial Police of Antwerp, with the assistance of the computer crime unit of the federal police (RCCU and FCCU) and punctually from PZ Mechelen. -Willebroek.

According to the public prosecutor’s office, the investigation consists of three main parts. 1) Attempting to mislead third parties by fraudulent arrangements with the intention of raising capital, for example on the results achieved by the company. 2) obtaining capital from the company. 3) money laundering, which is mainly about what happened to the money that would have been withdrawn from the company. These constructions ran partly over Zeeuws-Vlaanderen.

According to the court, no investigation is being conducted into KV Mechelen. Which does not alter the fact that, as is known, also at KV Mechelen there are invoices of which the economic reality is questioned by some. But that would have more to do with the earlier farewell of former shareholder Olivier Somers.

The fact that KV Mechelen is left on the left may have to do with the priorities of the research, the public prosecutor says.

‘Since the start of the investigation in July, the investigation team (investigators, investigating judge, public prosecutor) has conducted continuous and priority investigations.’ According to the public prosecutor, this resulted in, among other things, ten house searches, including three carried out by the investigating judge himself.

There have been several seizures, both of which are intended to collect evidence and to preserve assets. A number of persons possibly involved have since been interrogated.

Last week, for example, house searches were carried out at a law firm. In concrete terms, five people have been charged by the investigating judge in the investigation, including two lawyers. At the moment, all five are free under strict conditions, ‘says the public prosecutor’s office.

An indictment means that the investigating judge is of the opinion that there are serious indications of guilt for the specific crimes, but of course the presumption of innocence remains. A judicial investigation is looking for clues and elements. Debates about guilt or innocence follow after the completion of the judicial investigation.

At the request of the investigating judge, there was very limited communication by the Public Prosecution Service in the interest of the investigation and with respect for the rights of each party involved. Earlier it became known that the three founders of FNG have been suspected as well as lawyer Elke Janssens of Nauta Dutilh. So the second lawyer is David Lust.