BRUSSELS: US law enforcers on Tuesday handed Belgium an $800,000 (625,000-euro) reward for assisting in the arrest of gangster Ricardo Fancini, a Polish-born drugs baron connected to the Russian mafia.
The US Drug Enforcement Agency reward, the first in Belgian history, was handed over following the 2007 arrest of Fancini, up until then an elusive operator described by DEA regional chief Russell Benson as "an untouchable criminal figure."
Fancini, nabbed in his London townhouse after authorities received help from Belgium, was suspected of heading a gang that smuggled drugs from Asia to the United States via Poland and Belgium, stuffed in the back of television sets, for many years.
Connected to Colombia's cartels and Russian mafia bosses, he ran a money-laundering and cigarette smuggling business through Antwerp, where he had settled.
"He was very smart," Benson said at the reward ceremony. "He succeeded in keeping impunity during decades."
After a long inquiry involving investigators from across the world, he was picked up for conspiring to distribute 400 kilos (880 pounds) of ecstasy pills but entered a plea bargain that led to the dismantlement of his network and the arrest of some 40 people. He is serving a 10-year sentence in the US.
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