The procurement agency of NATO has been facing scrutiny regarding its arms and munitions deals. In May 2025, revelations regarding an ongoing corruption investigation involving current and former staff at the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) surfaced, with five detentions reported, including two in Belgium and three in the Netherlands. At the heart of the purported corruption lies a plan to award NATO contracts for military supplies and services in return for bribes.
This NATO corruption scandal captured global attention when multiple suspects were apprehended throughout Europe in May, including a US national. Months later, the U.S. dismissed charges against four of these individuals – one of whom is a prominent Turkish defense tycoon close to Erdogan.
In May 2025, the Belgian public prosecutor announced that multiple arrests had been conducted, indicating they were related to “possible irregularities” in contracts for purchasing ammunition and drones through NATO. Shortly after, Dutch authorities revealed they had made three arrests, including a 58-year-old former Defense Ministry official whose prior role involved international procurement contracts. In Luxembourg, the public prosecutor’s office confirmed that documents had been confiscated in the Grand Duchy and noted that the investigation had also extended to Italy, Spain, and the US, with coordination from the EU justice agency Eurojust.
On the morning of May 13, Scott Willason, an American who had resigned from his position as the head of the Ammunition and Support Branch at the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) to pursue a career in the private sector, was taken into custody in Lugano, Switzerland. Willason found himself entangled in a broad police operation that extended across multiple European nations, aimed at five current and former NATO officials, who are now consultants, attempting to sway bids for Alliance arms contracts in return for substantial commissions. Willason’s apprehension came after a collaborative investigation conducted by the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alongside the Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service. In the United States, these two agencies uncovered several questionable transactions associated with a significant contract for supplying TNT to the US Army.
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