Following on from our protection of Belgian authorities shutting down Vitae earlier this week, two arrested suspects have now been confirmed.
For extra we flip to a June twenty fourth report from De Tijd.
Of specific curiosity in De Tijd’s report is reference to Michael Weber;
Primarily self-made Belgians are behind Vitae, such because the creator Michael W. and the moneylenders Mendy Z. and Shrage P.
De Tijd’s report seems to substantiate separate intel I obtained, figuring out these arrested as Man Meeuwis, Mendy Zicherman, Shrage Posen (proper), Kobe Bické and Tom Lauwerysen.
Notice that aside from Zicherman and Posen, the opposite names above are unconfirmed.
Given De Tijd’s article is in Dutch, I take it “cash lender” is a nasty translation of “cash launderer”.
Mendy Zicherman is Vitae’s Chief Industrial Officer:
And Shrage Posen is Vitae’s Chief Working Officer:
The 5 arrested suspects have been charged with being members of a legal group, fraud and cash laundering.
Different attention-grabbing tidbits revealed in De Tijd’s article embrace:
- Vitae was run by means of Vitae AG, a shell firm integrated in Switzerland by means of a PO Field;
- seven properties had been raided on Tuesday throughout Antwerp, East and West Flanders and Limburg;
- Belgian authorities labored with Swiss authorities to conduct raids tied to Vitae AG;
- the Belgian investigation was stored beneath wraps in order that Vitae’s executives and prime promoters couldn’t money out earlier than the arrests and seizures;
- 37% of Vitae tokens have been seized;
- 1.1 million EUR has been seized;
- 1.5 million in cryptocurrency has been seized; and
- seven luxurious autos, “a variety of luxurious watches” and gold has additionally been seized.
Belgian authorities have pegged Vitae’s victims at round 223,000. Collectively their losses are believed to run into the tens of tens of millions.
Vitae’s founder and CEO Michael Weber, aka Michael Bradley, is believed to be a resident of Colorado Springs, Colorado within the US.
Weber’s final Twitter publish was a retweet on June nineteenth. His present standing and whereabouts stay unknown.
Replace twenty fourth June 2021 – Europol has revealed it was a part of the coordination efforts between Belgium and Switzerland.
With the assist of Europol, the Belgian Federal Judicial Police (Federale Gerechtelijke Politie, Police Judiciaire Fédérale) beneath the jurisdiction of the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Workplace (Federaal Parket, Parquet Fédéral) has taken motion towards the alleged members of an organised crime group working a worldwide Ponzi scheme.
The members of this organised crime group are for essentially the most half Belgian nationals who had been making use of an organization beneath Swiss jurisdiction. Numerous home searches had been carried out in parallel by the Swiss Federal Police (fedpol).
Europol deployed 4 of its specialists to Belgium and Switzerland to help the nationwide authorities with the actions within the area.
This operation was carried out within the framework of the European Multidisciplinary Platform In opposition to Legal Threats (EMPACT).
Nonetheless no phrase on Weber.