Wise PLC, the London-listed fintech that built its brand on cheap, transparent cross-border payments, is facing a crisis that’s anything but transparent. Belgian prosecutors have opened an investigation into the company’s accounts for possible money laundering tied to fraud, drug trafficking, and corruption.
The stock market’s reaction was swift and brutal. Wise shares plunged 18% on the news, erasing billions in market value.
What Belgian prosecutors found
The investigation centers on Wise accounts that appeared in judicial requests spanning more than 30 European jurisdictions. The total volume of suspicious transactions linked to Wise sits at approximately €500 million. Belgian authorities reportedly received hundreds of judicial requests that collectively painted a picture concerning enough to warrant a formal probe. The alleged activities connected to these accounts include fraud, drug trafficking, and corruption.
The investigation was actually opened back in 2022, after the company’s accounts kept surfacing in cross-border judicial proceedings. The public disclosure of its scope and scale is what triggered the market selloff.
A pattern of compliance failures
In 2022, the National Bank of Belgium conducted its own review and found significant gaps in Wise’s customer due diligence practices. The central bank discovered that hundreds of thousands of customers were missing basic proof of address documentation. The National Bank ordered Wise to implement a formal remediation plan. The company says it has since completed all of the recommendations from that review.
In July 2025, Wise’s US subsidiary was hit with a $4.2 million fine for inadequate anti-money laundering compliance across six states.
What this means for investors
The 18% share price drop reflects a fundamental repricing of regulatory risk for a company that investors had largely treated as a growth story with minimal compliance baggage.
The €500 million figure is the number to watch. If prosecutors can demonstrate that Wise failed to flag or report transactions that should have triggered alerts, the company could face penalties that dwarf the $4.2 million US fine. European regulators have shown increasing willingness to impose meaningful financial consequences on firms that fall short of AML standards.
Wise operates across dozens of markets under various regulatory approvals. A formal finding of money laundering facilitation, even through negligence rather than intent, could jeopardize its ability to operate in certain jurisdictions. The company’s claim that it completed all prior remediation recommendations will be tested against the prosecutors’ findings, and given that the probe has been running since 2022, there’s likely a substantial evidence file already assembled.