More than 100 Belgian police officers raided offices implicated in a lobbying scandal in the European Parliament on Thursday, with local media naming the company at the centre of the investigation as Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies.
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The Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office said several individuals were arrested for questioning over an “active corruption” case in the parliament as well as for “forgery and use of false documents”.
“The corruption is said to have been practised regularly and very discreetly from 2021 to the present day, under the guise of commercial lobbying and taking various forms, such as remuneration for taking political positions or excessive gifts such as food and travel expenses or regular invitations to football matches,” the office said.
It added that the lobbying was “promoting purely private commercial interests in the context of political decisions”.
A joint investigation by Brussels-based news site Follow the Money, Belgian daily Le Soir and Dutch-language weekly Knack named Huawei as the focus of the investigation, saying the “dawn raids were part of a covert police investigation that started about two years ago after a tip-off from the Belgian secret service”.
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Follow the Money said Huawei’s EU office as well as the homes of its lobbyists were among the sites raided.