Looters in Pinstripes: Euroclear, the EU, and the Neo-Colonial Heist of Russia’s Wealth

By Prince Kapone | Weaponized Information | May 3, 2025

Part I: The Empire’s Paper Trail – How Reuters Whitewashes Financial Piracy

“Europe will redistribute €3 billion from frozen Russian assets to compensate Western investors.” That’s the lead from Reuters’ latest dispatch, but let’s call it what it really is: imperial indemnity, plain and simple. Euroclear, the Belgian-based securities settlement giant, has transformed into a 21st-century colonial pirate, redistributing plunder from Russia’s coffers into the vaults of monopoly finance capital.

Reuters frames the story in antiseptic legalese—“compensation,” “sanctions mechanism,” “investor protection.” But dig beneath the euphemisms, and the stench of imperial robbery is unmistakable. The EU’s seizure of €3 billion isn’t just a financial transaction—it’s a continuation of Europe’s 500-year tradition of extracting wealth from the Global South under the pretense of law and order.

It’s telling that Euroclear’s 2023 financial report boasts of earning €6.9 billion in interest off frozen Russian assets. Profiting from immobilized capital, then funneling that profit into Western corporate treasuries? That’s not “finance.” That’s financial bloodsucking. And now, emboldened by EU Council Regulation 2024/567, Euroclear has been authorized to siphon off the principal itself. Regulatory piracy.

The Reuters article omits the EU’s control of €183 billion in frozen Russian assets, Moscow’s 2024 lawsuits against Euroclear, and the U.S. rejection of the ICJ’s jurisdiction in 1986 when found guilty of mining Nicaragua’s harbors. This hypocrisy—enforcing “law” on adversaries while ignoring it for itself—is the bedrock of imperial “rules-based order.”

Reuters also avoids historical context. But we won’t. Euroclear’s piracy sits atop an older tradition: the economic pillage perfected by European colonialism. Belgium—the nation greenlighting this theft—oversaw the Congo’s plunder under King Leopold II, who killed 10 million Congolese while extracting rubber, ivory, and copper. Today, colonial plunder travels through SWIFT networks instead of gunboats, but the destination remains the same: imperial coffers.

By framing this theft as “investor compensation,” Reuters launders piracy into policy. It erases how sanctions—a form of economic lawfare—prepare the ideological ground for harder coercion, as warned by the Tricontinental Institute. This narrative laundering won’t pass here. We expose the ledger: every euro seized from Russia today rehearses the next act of imperial extraction.

Part II: Excavating the Material Truth – The Geopolitical Context

Let’s line up the facts:

• Euroclear controls €183 billion in frozen Russian assets.
• The EU authorized €3 billion in imperial indemnity to Western investors.
• Euroclear earned €6.9 billion in interest in 2023 alone.
• Belgium approved this under Council Regulation 2024/567.

These numbers indict imperialism. This is not isolated financial policy—it’s part of a systematic architecture of plunder. The EU’s seizure mirrors its theft of Venezuela’s gold in the Bank of England, Iran’s $7 billion in South Korea, and Afghanistan’s $7 billion in U.S. banks. This is piracy institutionalized, a strategy of hyper-imperialism: a dying empire looting through banks and courts.

We must understand this seizure as both economic and ideological warfare. The seizure isn’t a response to war—it’s an extension of it. Euroclear’s role isn’t neutral. It’s a financial arm of NATO’s economic war strategy, weaponizing global payment systems to enforce imperial supremacy.

The EU’s legal framework builds on U.S. “lawfare” precedents. Just as the U.S. courts invented doctrines to justify Cuban embargoes, Venezuelan asset seizures, and Iranian sanctions, the EU now codifies piracy through Council regulations. Law is deployed selectively to entrench imperial plunder.

Part III: Reframing the Narrative—Financial Piracy as Neo-Colonialism

Euroclear’s theft must be reframed as a new phase of colonial extraction. The EU frames its seizure as “upholding the rules-based order,” but this order was built on colonial conquest and economic domination.

Belgium’s colonial legacy isn’t buried in the past—it’s alive in Euroclear’s spreadsheets. The same empire that brutalized the Congo now weaponizes financial systems to loot Russia. Gunboat diplomacy has gone digital.

When Reuters quotes anonymous EU officials about “investor protection,” we must ask: which investors? BlackRock and JPMorgan aren’t victims—they’re war profiteers. Lockheed Martin’s $67 billion in arms sales in 2024 dwarfs the €3 billion Euroclear is handing to Western financiers. This isn’t reparations for losses; it’s a bailout for a decaying imperial order.

The EU claims legal legitimacy. But if “accountability” justifies theft, why did the U.S. ignore the ICJ’s 1986 ruling ordering $17 billion in reparations to Nicaragua for mining its harbors? Imperial “law” binds only the colonized.

Meanwhile, 120 nations condemned unilateral sanctions as illegal at the UN General Assembly in 2023. The global majority rejects this piracy disguised as policy.

Part IV: Mobilizing Revolutionary Solidarity

The question isn’t just what they’re stealing, but what we’re building. We must dismantle the infrastructure enabling this theft.

Activists from CODEPINK disrupt the war machine. The Sanctions Kill Coalition exposes the human cost of economic war. The Uhuru Movement, despite FBI repression, links African liberation to the struggle against imperialism. We must forge a global front that links Euroclear’s theft to the broader architecture of imperial plunder.

Our task is clear:

• Expose the banks, courts, and media laundering theft.
• Disrupt Euroclear’s operations and arms profiteers.
• Build alternatives: BRICS currencies, South-South trade, and financial sovereignty.

Every dollar, every euro stolen from the Global South must be counted, exposed, and reclaimed.

This isn’t just an article—it’s a ledger of imperial theft. And we, the global working classes, alongside the colonized and oppressed, are keeping receipts.

* Financial bloodsucking: Extracting wealth from immobilized capital, like parasites draining a host.

** Lawfare: Using courts and laws as weapons against geopolitical rivals.

*** Multipolar sovereignty: Nations breaking free of Western control.