Good morning,
We do hope you find insightful this morning's investigation into behind-the-scenes fear and loathing at Euroclear, the Belgian firm holding Russian president Vladimir Putin's frozen billions.
It's a reminder that Europe is dealing with a mafia lord instead of a statesman, who settles disputes by invasions or by threatening innocent people's families and pets, instead of in Swedish arbitration courts.
It's also worth remembering that even major EU decisions are de facto made by individuals, not institutions, and that individuals can be gotten to.
We know more details about the alleged threats to Urbain and the violent incident with the second executive, but we were urged not to publish these to protect their privacy and safety.
As often with investigations, this one depended on persuading sources to put information into the public sphere - a process which can take months.
Dossier Center's data provided important corroboration of Huby's fishy reputation inside Euroclear.
Meanwhile, my other partner, Jan Antonissen from Belgian magazine Humo, is a master of finding people's personal phone numbers.
And we made ample efforts to let Huby deny/confirm/explain the allegations, but he chose not to.
Sources had various theories.
Was Huby trying to scare Urbain and others to back Russia's line?
Maybe he was just a "strange character" who loved Russia and who trolled colleagues in some kind of creepy joke.
Or was he trying to manipulate Euroclear into hiring Amarante, so that French authorities could place insiders there, prior to a French takeover bid for the ultra-high value firm?
In any case, one can only hope that senior people at German arms maker Rheinmetall or French defence firm Thales, for instance, don't still fly back and forth to Moscow, even if just for ballet, given Russia's rampaging aggression in Europe.
Because make no mistake: the Belgian financial firm is now as strategically important for Ukraine and western Europe's future security as any military contractor supplying ammunition to Kyiv's army.
The EU needs Euroclear's frozen billions to pay for Rheinmetall's 155mm shells to keep flowing.
And Europe's critical private companies, their CEOs and families, merit the same level of protection as Europe's top politicians or defence VIPs.
It's a "different world now", as the Euroclear spokesman told us, after Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine saw him also resort to gangster tactics in the EU as never before.
– Andrew Rettman, foreign-affairs editor
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Bolshoi-loving banker threatened Euroclear CEO, amid EU talks on Russian assets
A French banker inside Euroclear, who flew to Russia 155 times for private reasons, allegedly tried to connect the company's CEO, Valérie Urbain, with Russian spies and threatened her when she declined, according to an investigation by EUobserver, Humo, and Dossier Center.
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