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Life
The law enforcer: Johan Denolf
Director of the department for Economics and Financial Crime Division (DJF) of the Belgian Federal Police
In normal fraud, you have an author and a victim. A guy
wants to marry a Filipino girl he finds on the internet.
He is asked for 500 euro for a flight, but the Filipino girl
is only 20 and her mother will need to come as well, so
they need another 500 euro. He goes to the airport with
flowers to wait for his future bride, who never turns up.
That’s normal fraud, the local police would deal with
that. If there were several similar cases, we would make
the link, through collaboration with institutions like
Interpol. But corruption is different. It’s fraud committed
by two parties who both have an interest in keeping silent.
The one who is bribing and the one who is accepting are
both part of the scheme. The biggest challenge is to follow
the money. And to actually get things not only seized, but
also brought back to the Belgian government. Sometimes
we’re too late and the money is already gone. It happens.
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