The Huawei corruption scandal at the heart of Brussels involving left-wing and centre-right groups in the European Parliament (EP) has claimed another scalp: on Thursday, March 20th, Italian police arrested the parliamentary assistant to Fulvio Martusciello, an MEP of the centrist European People’s Party (EPP).
The assistant, Lucia Simeone, was arrested on charges of money laundering, criminal association, and corruption.
The European arrest warrant was issued by Belgian prosecutors who are investigating how Chinese tech giant Huawei may have bought favours from at least 15 MEPs in exchange for influencing key legislative decisions to benefit its commercial interests within the European Union.
Fulvio Martusciello is being investigated in two cases—one tied to the Huawei probe, the other to expenses fraud. He and a former MEP, Italian liberal Giuseppe Ferrandino, are suspected of forging signatures to fraudulently claim parliamentary allowances.
The Huawei scandal erupted last week when police conducted twenty-one raids in Belgium and Portugal. The raids included Huawei’s headquarters in Brussels and the homes of several of its lobbyists. Another series of raids took place earlier this week in Belgium and Portugal, including some targeting offices inside the EP.
Investigators are searching for evidence of bribery, money laundering, and document forgery within the framework of a criminal organisation.
The police found sufficient evidence to charge and detain five suspects on Tuesday.
The names of the implicated MEPs have not yet been revealed but one of the main suspects, Valerio Ottati, is a former adviser to two Italian MEPs from the EP’s EPP and Social Democratic (S&D) groups.
An investigation conducted by europeanconservative.com revealed that at least 25 meetings took place between European parliamentarians and Huawei representatives from 2020 to 2023. The MEPs involved are all leftists, liberals, and centre-right lawmakers.
The latest revelations bring to mind the Qatargate scandal of 2022, which revealed that MEPs had engaged in corruption on behalf of Qatar, Morocco, and Mauritania. Allegations also heavily featured socialist lawmakers, with the most prominent being Greek EP Vice President Eva Kaili.
The scandals point to the cynicism and the double standards practiced by the ruling elites in Brussels who regularly lambast right-wing governments in Europe for ‘rule-of-law’ violations.
