A court in Leuven has sentenced a 59-year-old man to two years in prison for illegally selling weapons through a Polish website.
However, he was acquitted of money laundering charges involving €164,000. His 49-year-old wife received a suspended sentence for three years.
E.S., originally from Flemish Brabant but residing in Poland, owned the website on which the weapons were sold. According to the court, he conducted this illegal activity from November 2017 to July 2023. Both defendants were involved.
The weapons sold included air pistols, alarm pistols, silencers, batons, and knives.
Since the website was in Dutch and the bank account used was Belgian, the court concluded that the weapons were intended for the Belgian market.
Several of the couple’s customers were already known to the authorities as weapon owners. Orders were delivered via a Polish delivery service.
The defendants denied the charges and requested acquittal during a hearing last November. E.S. defended himself by stating that he only sold weapons that were freely available in Poland. He also claimed that his target market was Dutch-speaking clients living abroad. The court, however, did not believe these claims.
The court did acquit E.S. of money laundering charges due to insufficient evidence regarding the origin of the €164,000.
