Belgium nears end of probe into Wise Europe over alleged €500 million laundering network

Belgian prosecutors are close to wrapping up an investigation into Wise Europe, the fintech’s European arm, over suspicions that accounts were used to move money linked to fraud, corruption, and drug trafficking. For PSPs and compliance teams, the useful part is not the headline number alone; it is the familiar combination of onboarding gaps, transaction monitoring questions, and cross-border scrutiny from multiple jurisdictions.

1. Belgium’s prosecutor is investigating around €500 million in suspicious transactions during the review period, with the case now at its final stage. The probe began in 2025.
2. The trigger was Wise’s name appearing in hundreds of mutual legal assistance requests from authorities in more than 30 European countries. That is the sort of paper trail that tends to turn a local compliance issue into a broader cross-border file.
3. The allegations focus on shortcomings in customer identification and activity monitoring, which points to possible AML (anti-money laundering) failures rather than a single isolated transaction issue.
4. This is not Wise’s first regulatory problem in Belgium. The source says Belgium had already flagged gaps in customer data in 2024, while Wise also faced a U.S. regulator fine in 2025 and sanctions in the UAE in 2022.
5. Wise’s business model depends on fast and low-cost cross-border transfers, but tighter compliance pushes the economics closer to those of traditional banks. The company’s shares fell as much as 20% intraday after the news and closed 8% lower.

For context, Wise’s annual cross-border payment volume is $243 billion in 2026, so €500 million is less than 0.3% of turnover. The bigger issue for PSPs is not the ratio; it is whether one jurisdiction’s findings become the starting point for checks elsewhere.