More than 7,500 companies have been dissolved in Brussels in the past five years. The newspaper L’Echo reported this on Saturday. According to the newspaper, this is a positive signal that criminal organizations are moving their ghost companies from the capital. However, many transfer the headquarters of their fraudulent companies to other regions, mainly Flanders.
Since 2019, the French-speaking corporate court in Brussels has dissolved 7,533 companies. The figures are constantly increasing and reached a peak in 2023: 2,313 companies were dissolved. The number of cases in the Dutch-speaking court is also increasing. According to the latest available figures, 760 companies were dissolved in 2022.
According to police and judicial sources, the results are due to the creation of the “Company dumping” platform in 2018. A number of governments then joined forces to clean up the ghost companies, which are used by crime gangs for social fraud and money laundering. of drug money.
“In 2019, Brussels had a huge problem, with about 10,000 ghost companies. Today, the number of dormant companies is very small,” says Paul Dhaeyer, president of the French-speaking company court.
The fact that criminal organizations are moving their ghost companies to Flemish Brabant or Walloon Brabant recently became apparent in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, where more than 400 ghost companies were discovered at one address.
This article is originally published on bruzz.be
