In December 2022, police launched a series of raids on properties and offices across Brussels, arrested key suspects and seized bags of cash, in one of the biggest corruption investigations ever to hit the European Union. The core allegations are that suspects linked to the European Parliament accepted money or gifts in exchange for doing the bidding of Qatar. Later, it emerged that Morocco and Mauritania were also allegedly suspected of being behind cash-for-influence operations in the Parliament. But the scandal instantly became known as “Qatargate.”