Inoyatov family invested huge amounts of money in a 36 hectares residential development, comprising 109 houses, ideally located on the right bank of Neva River, 30-minute drive from Sankt Petersburg. The complex called “Nevskaya Usadba” is owned by Metkem, a Sankt Petersburg-based company controlled by Sharif Inoyatov, son of Rustam Inoyatov. OSI continues to report… Continue reading
When on 22 March this year the Kazakhgate commission in the Belgian Parliament questioned the former CEO of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), Freddy Hanard, it was very shy. No powerful questions were asked. It was as if the members of the commission were afraid to reveal too much of the truth, namely that… Continue reading
Despite early efforts, the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission can no longer ignore the obvious: According to its president, Dirk Van der Maelen, the Commission concluded that the settlement law was drafted by the diamond lobby for the benefit of the diamond dealers involved in fraud investigations. However this conclusion was not based on the testimonies of… Continue reading
Members of the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission were shocked to find out on 19 April 2017 that the academic expert who supported the settlement bill in the Senate was on the diamond lobby’s payroll. OSI can now reveal that while pushing for the enlargement of the criminal settlement, Raf Verstraeten (photo) was not only the lawyer of… Continue reading
In a recent interview in the Belgian magazine HUMO, the president of the so-called Kazakhgate commission, Dirk Van der Maelen (sp.a), said that “the text we voted on March 2, 2011, was not from Carina Van Cauter. It was a copy of the bill of Servais Verherstraeten (CD&V). We have now discovered during the inquiry… Continue reading
It has taken Belgian Parliamentary Inquiry Commission four months to discover the obvious: the enlargement of the criminal settlement law was drafted by the Antwerp diamond lobby in 2009. On 10 April 2017, Dirk Van der Maelen, the president of the commission, bragged in an interview: “We have now discovered in the inquiry that the Verherstraeten… Continue reading
Judicial documents seen by OSI reveal that Belgian investigators asked for assistance from South African authorities in a criminal inquiry against Omega Diamonds and Sylvain Goldberg. In October 2008, during the search and seizure operation at Omega’s offices in Antwerp, Belgian authorities discovered documents related to a South African company. A magistrate in Antwerp submitted… Continue reading
OSI offered ample evidence that the law voted on 14 April 2011 in the Belgian Parliament amending the Code of Criminal procedure by allowing prosecuted individuals and companies to enter into transactions with the Public Prosecutor to terminate the public prosecution of offences – the so-called “extended criminal transaction” – was in fact drafted and… Continue reading
„I made a commitment to the Zimbabwean minister of Mines to help lift the European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation and I worked extremely hard to keep these promises”. As strange as it may seem, it was not a government official or a politician who made that statement. It was Antwerp World Diamond… Continue reading
The 2011 extension of the scope of criminal transaction was not the first bill meant to resolve Antwerp diamond industry’s legal issues. It was not the first draft law created by the diamond lobby, written by AWDC’s lawyers, introduced by Servais Verherstraeten, and endorsed by the informal group of Belgian MPs serving the interests of… Continue reading
