On September 2, 2025, the Brussels Prosecutor’s Office announced that, in addition to investigating the money laundering case involving former EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders—who has been under investigation since 2024—it is also tracking his ties with Moscow. In particular, Belgian law enforcement became interested in possible contacts between the former EU Commissioner and Oleg Deripaska, one of the Kremlin’s oligarchs who is on the EU sanctions list. It was revealed that through a number of Brussels-based charitable foundations linked to Deripaska, €878,000 had been transferred to entities involved in the Kremlin’s financial operations.
It should be noted that Reynders is a highly influential figure in Belgian politics, having served as Minister of Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a member of parliament. He was one of the few senior officials who managed to remain in the influential position of finance minister under four different prime ministers. In the 2000s his stature grew rapidly: he was elected chairman of the Walloon Liberal Party, and at the request of the King of Belgium he acted as mediator to help the country overcome political deadlocks after the 2007 and 2011 elections. From 2011 to 2019, Reynders headed Belgium’s diplomatic service. In early 2019, he ran for the post of Secretary General of the Council of Europe, making the shortlist of main contenders, but eventually lost to Croatia’s Marija Pejčinović Burić. Shortly thereafter, then-Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel nominated Reynders as EU Commissioner in Ursula von der Leyen’s team.
Interestingly, it was Reynders’s candidacy for Secretary General of the Council of Europe that first attracted heightened scrutiny. A state security officer alerted the prosecutor’s office, alleging that Reynders had committed violations during public procurement procedures in the construction of Belgium’s embassy in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition, Reynders was accused of taking bribes. Thus, immediately after being nominated for the high office in the Council of Europe, Reynders became the subject of an investigation into corruption and money laundering—an investigation that was closed just days before his confirmation by the European Parliament. At the time, Reynders dismissed all accusations as a “malicious attack” aimed at derailing his career.
As EU Commissioner for Justice, Reynders gained prominence in the context of the European Commission’s disputes with Poland and Hungary over the rule of law. He opposed Poland’s controversial judicial reform, arguing that it weakened traditional checks and balances. At the same time, he challenged Viktor Orbán’s Hungarian government on issues such as judicial independence, LGBTQ rights, asylum procedures, lack of transparency in public procurement, conflicts of interest in government, and corruption. The numerous shortcomings he identified in Budapest ultimately led to the freezing of EU funding to Hungary.
In spring 2024, Reynders once again sought the post of Secretary General of the Council of Europe, and once again lost. The politician assumed that he would at least retain his post as EU Commissioner for Justice, but the Belgian government nominated someone else.
Reynders also attracted law enforcement attention for spending unusually large amounts of cash over several years on lottery tickets, with winnings transferred to his personal bank accounts. Thus, two days after his mandate as EU Commissioner expired and he lost diplomatic immunity, the Brussels Prosecutor’s Office decided to scrutinize how and with what funds he had been buying lottery tickets for years.
A particularly striking detail is that he purchased these lottery tickets through the Belgian National Lottery—an institution under his authority when he served as a government minister. The source of such large volumes of cash remains unclear to Belgian police. It is now reasonably suspected that the former Belgian minister and EU Commissioner laundered money for years through the Belgian National Lottery. The exact amount of his spending has not been disclosed, but the fact that it alarmed both police and Belgium’s Anti-Money Laundering Center suggests that the sums involved are significant. The Brussels Prosecutor’s Office admits that this case, like similar ones, could drag on for years.
At the end of August 2025, prosecutors reported that in the course of investigating Reynders’s suspected money laundering, investigators also focused on ING Belgium. A separate case has now been opened against the bank over its possible involvement in “influence peddling” connected to the way it handled Reynders’s large cash deposits amounting to more than €700,000 between 2008 and 2018. ING Belgium only reported the suspicious transactions to Belgian law enforcement in 2023.
For its part, ING Belgium assured European media that the bank is firmly committed to combating financial crime and invests heavily in detecting money laundering practices. It also emphasized that it works closely with numerous external stakeholders on a wide range of banking issues, including financial crime, and contributes actively to safeguarding the integrity of the EU’s financial system.