Suitcases filled with euros were seized in Brussels flats. A number of MEPs are locked up behind bars awaiting trial. Belgian investigators and Italian judges are now enmeshed in a battle over extradition.
Andrea Cozzolino, an MEP for Southern Italy since 2009, is accused of allegedly taking bribes from other countries to influence the European Parliament.
He and four other current and former MEPs are involved in the Qatargate investigation, centered on allegations that Qatar and Morocco paid a group based in Brussels to sway EU lawmakers.
Qatar vehemently denied all the allegations. Morocco has hit back at “judicial harassment” and “media attacks”.
Mr Cozzolino, 60, will be taken to a Belgian prison under a European Arrest Warrant, leaving the house arrest in the southern Italian city of Naples when judges decide his fate.
A parliamentary report earlier in the year stated that Mr Cozzolino was suspected of “protecting the interests of foreign states in the European Parliament… in exchange for sums of money”.
On the warrant issued against Mr Cozzolino, Federico Conte, Cozzolino’s lawyer, informed BBC that the warrant was “completely vague, partial and sometimes it even lacks transparency”.
“Where did the corruption take place? When? Through what means – cash or bank transfers? From whom?” he said. “If the Belgian prosecutor has the proof of Mr Cozzolino’s guilt, why don’t they show it?”
“Our suspicion is that they think in jail Cozzolino… would be more inclined to confess or accuse others.”
Mr Conte has also accused the Belgian prison service of being overcrowded, with “lacking and obsolete” facilities.
The lawyer cited a 2022 Council of Europe report highlighting “overcrowding” and “clearly insufficient” health services in four Belgian prisons, four years after the body called for Belgium to improve inmates’ conditions, particularly when prison staff are on strike.
But Alberto Alemanno, professor of EU law at HEC Paris, dismissed Mr Conte’s allegations as “fictitious”. He accused him of “leveraging the health status of Mr Cozzolino in order to somehow tarnish… a very difficult investigation across Europe”, arguing they were a delaying tactic.
“[These allegations] sound very useful to satisfy the private interest of an individual who is currently suspected of major breaches of the rule of law,” he told the BBC.
Mr Alemanno described European Arrest Warrants as the “bread and butter” of European justice, and said Mr Cozzolino’s attempts to challenge it were “very unusual” – adding that the Belgian investigation so far into the corruption allegations had been “extremely thorough”, and that the prisons in Belgium compared favourably with others in Europe.
“[The prosecutors] are following the rules of the game, which basically stem from the European Court of Human Rights case law,” he said.
“We’re seeing a bit of a David and Goliath situation in which the Belgian authorities seem to find a lot of pushback from the political system, from the institutional system, and from third countries at the origin of this case.”
After the interview with Mr Conte the BBC sent all his allegations to the prosecutor’s office in Belgium which is leading the investigation.
Greek MEP Eva Kaili was arrested in December along with three others on suspicion of corruption and money laundering. Ms Kaili denied the charges. On the day of her arrest, Ms Kaili stuffed €300,000 ($326,000; £264,000) in her suitcase along with nappies and baby food for her daughter.
€1.5m has been recovered by the police in cash since the start of the investigation, in raids across Belgium, Italy and France.
Investigators believe a criminal network took bribes from Qatar and Morocco in return for influencing the European Parliament in Brussels.
Pier Antonio Panzeri, Former Italian MEP, allegedly led that network. He agreed to a plea bargain to reveal everything about the scheme in exchange for a reduced sentence of one year in custody. Charges against his wife and daughter were also dropped as part of that agreement.
According to these documents, the former politician told them that Qatar donated €250,000 each to Mr Cozzolino and Ms Kaili for their electoral campaigns.
He also allegedly said Francesco Giorgi – who worked as a parliamentary assistant for Mr Cozzolino and is the partner of Ms Kaili – distributed the Qatari cash.
Mr Giorgi has confessed as being the bag man for the network. He lists himself on his LinkedIn page as co-founder of the NGO Fight Impunity, a group set up by Mr Panzeri in 2019 to promote human rights.
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