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NATO's leadership on Monday doubled down on its commitment to rooting out corruption within the alliance, as Belgian authorities continue investigating three nationals arrested in connection with an alleged fraud scheme at the organization's Luxembourg-based procurement agency.
The arrests, which occurred in May, represent one of at least three corruption cases that have surfaced over the past year at the NATO Support and Procurement Agency, an entity that manages billions in defense contracts for member states.
"NATO has no tolerance for fraud or corruption," NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said in a statement.
The NSPA, headquartered in Capellen, Luxembourg, employs approximately 1,500 people and is projected to oversee procurement contracts worth €10 billion ($11.6 billion) this year. The agency handles purchases ranging from aircraft and helicopters to ammunition and fuel on behalf of NATO's 32 member countries.
According to a joint investigation by Belgian magazine Knack, newspapers Le Soir and Follow the Money, and La Lettre, the three Belgian suspects allegedly provided confidential information to defense contractors competing for lucrative NATO contracts covering the 2021-2025 period.
One suspect, a 60-year-old ammunition specialist from the Belgian coastal town of Bredene, previously worked for the NSPA before establishing private consultancy firms, according to the investigation. The other two suspects are former colleagues accused of participating in the same scheme.
"Suppose you are a defense company and you want to sell to several NATO countries at once, it is best to work through the Luxembourg agency," said Kristof Clerix, a journalist who helped expose the case. "But if a consultancy firm advising such companies obtains inside information, there is no longer a level playing field. That is what investigators are now trying to determine, whether confidential information was leaked in Luxembourg, and whether Belgians played a role in that."
Belgian prosecutors confirmed that one suspect remains in custody, another is under electronic surveillance, and a third has been released on conditional bail.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte received a request from the Belgian Federal Prosecutor on May 12 to lift the functional immunity of three former and current NSPA staff members, which he granted the same day, according to Hart's statement.
The alliance has taken steps to strengthen internal oversight. The NSPA established its own investigative branch in 2023, following the adoption of NATO's 2022 Strategy on the Prevention, Detection and Response to Fraud and Corruption.
Hart noted that "in the context of the cases in question, the NSPA proactively initiated cooperation with national law enforcement agencies and continues to offer full support to their respective probes of alleged criminal activity by a number of current and former agency personnel."
To bolster investigative capacity, Rutte and the NSPA general manager have established a joint task force between NATO headquarters and the agency "to increase investigative capacity and fully investigate any potential fraud and corruption by agency personnel or contractors doing business with the agency," the statement said.
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