A court in Antwerp has convicted two brothers of money laundering and fraud and has sentenced them to 18-month suspended jail after an investigation on a gold refinery owned by them revealed that they were involved in mining and trading illegal gold. They were sentenced with other 25 customers who were involved in the illegal deals. This also sprung up another investigation on a gold refinery in Uganda owned by one of the brothers, Alain Goetz, however, it has denied involvement in illegal activities. According to the court, the two brothers Alain and Sylvain developed a fraud system in 2010 and 2011 where customers can anonymously sell gold in exchange for cash. Customers were registered as gold traders and all purchases were split to prevent suspicion. It was first discovered during the period of 2010 and 2011 when Tony paid over a billion euro in cash in exchange for gold and accrued a capital gain of 9.2 million euros, as issued on Jan 30. The court suspended the fine of 99,000 euros and jail terms until they committed another offence.
Tony has denied the allegation that he violated the law and has no involvement in illegal activities as defined by the rules and regulations. He also added that he has not received any cash payment since 2012 and that Alain Goetz was no more connected to the company and does not receive gold from Venezuela or Uganda. When Alain was interrogated, he said he resigned since 2014 and sold his shares in the Ugandan refinery, besides, payment of gold in cash was legal in 2010 and 2011, therefore, none of them has violated the anti-money laundering law.
