The US Federal Reserve has laundered money through Belgium, an analyst says.

Paul Craig Roberts was referring to the purchase of USD 141.2 of Federal Reserve bonds by Belgium’s Central Bank from November 2013 through January 2014.

“…Where did the $141.2 billion come from?…. Certainly Belgium did not have a budget surplus of USD 141.2 billion,” he said.

The analyst argued that the sum must have come “from the US Federal Reserve” so that the purchase could be “laundered through Belgium in order to hide the fact that actual bond purchases during the November-January “were USD 112 billion per month.”

Roberts added that the Federal Reserve has decided to reassure “holders of dollars and dollar-denominated financial instruments” that no new dollars would be printed.

“That the Fed believed that it could not buy the bonds outright but needed to disguise its purchase by laundering it through Belgium suggests that the Fed is concerned that the world is losing confidence in the dollar,” he wrote.

Roberts said the dollar risks losing “its reserve currency status” if the greenback depreciates.

In recent months, Belgium has officially become one of the US government’s debt holders after vaulting past countries like the UK and Switzerland.

Some countries have in recent years been purchasing bonds from the US Treasury through intermediaries in major financial centers such as Hong Kong or London.