Sweeping arrests in Greece over EU farm subsidy scandal
Source: NEOS KOSMOS
Greek police arrested 37 people on Wednesday in a sweep related to a multi-million EU farm subsidy scandal which the prime minister warned could seriously hit the agricultural sector.
Officers carried out arrests in the greater Athens area, Thessaloniki, the island of Crete and other areas.
The case has put major pressure on conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis – particularly given his family’s decades-long political influence in Crete, where most of the allegedly fraudulent subsidies went.
The police action followed an October 13 raid by the European Union’s anti-fraud agency OLAF on the offices of OPEKEPE, Greece’s state agency supervising the payment of EU support funds to farmers.
The suspects were allegedly “involved in large-scale agricultural funding fraud and money laundering”, the European public prosecutor’s office (EPPO) said in a statement Wednesday.
“The investigation revealed that, since at least 2018, the group is believed to have been operating across the whole of Greece, with a clear hierarchical structure, distinct roles, and continuous activity up to this day,” the statement added.
It is estimated the scam cost genuine farmers 70 million euros in subsidies annually.
An EU investigation has shown widespread abuse of funds handed out by OPEKEPE, which according to the government disburses more than three billion euros annually, mainly in subsidies to 680,000 farmers.
Cases under investigation include pastures declared in archaeological sites, olive trees in a military airport and banana plantations on Mount Olympus.
‘Organised criminal group’
The EPPO said investigators had initially identified 324 subsidy recipients.
“Of these, 42 are believed to be involved in this case and are considered current members of the organised criminal group,” it added.
They estimate losses of over 19.6 million euros to the EU budget.
Mitsotakis, under pressure over the affair, has vowed to imprison the “thieves” responsible and to reclaim the funds.
“It is clear that criminal investigations were involved here, taking advantage of state failings to claim money they were not entitled to,” he told Skai radio on Wednesday.
The scandal could cast doubt on future EU funds for Greece’s primary sector if not resolved, he warned.
State auditors have already seized 22 million euros from over 1,000 tax accounts.
“Whatever the political cost, I am not backing down,” the premier said.
European prosecutors say the suspects, most of whom appear to have no actual connection to farming, “allegedly inflated livestock numbers to increase their subsidy entitlements.
“To conceal the illicit origin of the proceeds, the suspects are believed to have issued fictitious invoices, routed the funds through multiple bank accounts, and mixed them with legitimate income,” said the EPPO statement.
‘Acronym for corruption’
The scheme began after the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy shifted subsidies from livestock to land in 2014. With a woefully incomplete land registry at the time, ownership across much of Greece was unclear.
Farmers were therefore allowed to declare land owned elsewhere in the country to claim a share of the subsidies.
Non-farmers with political connections got in on the action, lured by the prospect of easy money, say investigators.
In a visit to Athens this month, European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kovesi said the OPEKEPE agency had become “the acronym for corruption, nepotism and clientelism”.
According to OPEKEPE, approximately 80 percent of total subsidies granted from 2017 to 2020 for pastures ended up in Crete.
Mitsotakis has stressed that the fraud, which Greek authorities estimate amounts to at least 23 million euros, began in 2016, before he came to power in 2019.
The government “has nothing to hide or to fear from such checks”, he said last month.
Source: Agence France-Presse
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