Colfontaine’s seven municipal officials were arrested on Wednesday as part of a house search by federal judicial police at the People’s Service of Hainaut municipality. The public prosecutor’s office in Mons confirms this according to Belga reports of SudPresse.
According to SudPresse, this applies to the entire staff of that demographic service.
Such facts are very serious. “If the facts are proven, they face two to five years in prison and a fine of 500 to 100,000 euros, multiplied by eight. So it’s 800,000 euros,” confirms public prosecutor Damian Verheyen.
Colfontaine is a municipality in the Hainaut department of Belgium. The municipality has a population of over 20,000. Gaulfontein is located in the old industrial area of Borinage, in the urban area west of Mons.
The file resulted from a complaint by the FPS Home Affairs and the FPS Foreign Affairs Department which identified irregularities in the files of fifteen foreigners, particularly in relation to the issuance of identity documents and passports.
Belga: “According to the public prosecutor, those documents would have allowed illegally staying foreigners to settle in Belgium, but most in the United Kingdom.”
According to the first information found, the first clue of computer hacking was ruled out. “The question arises whether the internal coding of false information in the municipality’s computer system was done by one or more employees of the municipal administration,” the state attorney’s office says.
After Wednesday’s raid at the municipal administration, seven people were arrested and detained. One of them has been released. “The other six will be arraigned again on Thursday, before they will be brought before the trial judge,” the Bergen state prosecutor’s office said.
Belga concludes: “In the coming weeks, many seized documents will be examined by investigators to assess whether the codes were indeed voluntary, whether compensation was received and the precise scope of the facts.”
Photo: Jean-Paul Grandmont – Wikipedia
