€440m frozen in Italy over suspect scam by fake farmers
Italian authorities issued a freezing order towards group of farmers alleging EU farming subsidies had been claimed for gardeners.
Three individuals linked to Italian companies allegedly made bogus claims greater than €375,000 in EU agricultural funds between 2020 and 2023, of which €65,000 has already been drawn from Italy’s fee company.
The 368 hectares of farmland they claimed to personal with a view to obtain the subsidies weren’t really theirs, nonetheless, in response to the authorities, belonging as an alternative to the naval air station of Sigonella, for which the three suspects used to easily minimize the grass.
“That’s the reason they weren’t allowed to make use of it for agricultural actions, however solely to hold out the grass mowing service,” stated a press officer on the European Public Prosecutor’s Workplace (EPPO) which requested the seizure issued by the choose for preliminary investigations of the Courtroom of Catania right now (22 Might).
The suspects are two brothers and one other companion who took an lively half within the alleged rip-off at a later stage. The brothers are accustomed to farming, nonetheless, as one of many two really owns an agriculture enterprise whereas the opposite was employed by Italy’s Agricultural Help Centre.
That is the third massive case involving freezing orders requested by EPPO – which investigates, prosecutes, and brings to judgment perpetrators of prison offences harming the EU finances – involving Italy this 12 months, resulting in greater than €3.7m property being frozen previously three months.
In 2023, a 3rd of the open investigations associated to fraud within the EU farming finances concerned Italy, in response to EPPO figures.
For Andrea Venegoni, European prosecutor for Italy, there are a lot of causes for the massive variety of agricultural fraud investigations within the nation.
“To begin with, there are a lot of rural areas in Italy the place EU funds are distributed to advertise agriculture and rural growth,” he instructed Euronews.
“It is usually pure that the place there’s cash, there’s a potential for fraud. Therefore, prison organisations goal EU funding programmes,” he added.
The prosecutor additionally highlighted the “extraordinary investigative expertise” of the Italian monetary and judicial police resulting in fraud detection, mixed with the exercise of the European delegated prosecutors who labored successfully with the legislation enforcement businesses.
Fraud is just not inside the remit of the Fee’s motion because the EU govt can solely tackle administrative errors which will happen and proper the spending with audits – whereas the EU anti-fraud workplace (OLAF) is the physique answerable for coping with fraud circumstances, which can then be prosecuted by EPPO.
“The Fee has zero tolerance for fraud. We belief EPPO, and OLAF, to at all times examine, observe up and prosecute fraud circumstances,” Fee spokesperson Olof Gill instructed Euronews.
“For the reason that property of the alleged perpetrators have been seized with a judicial order, the EU monetary curiosity is totally protected,” he added.
The Fee will probably be following developments of the case carefully to see if the alleged crimes spotlight weaknesses within the administrative management techniques, the spokesperson continued.