On Wednesday 19 January, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) said that it had helped an investigation to bring to justice a group of nine individuals and companies in Italy and Romania accused of illegally obtaining €850,000 of community funding for tomato production.
OLAF worked with the Romanian National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) and the Prosecutor’s Office of the Italian municipality of Enna and thus uncovered potentially fraudulent practices (false documents, fictitious companies) aimed at illegally obtaining EU funds.
Nine defendants are now formally accused of the fraud scheme in Romania – five Italian citizens and four Romanian legal entities. They will stand trial on charges of illegally obtaining EU agricultural funds in Romania. The criminal group set up shell companies in Romania for the sole purpose of receiving EU subsidies, without any intention of growing tomatoes.
Using falsified documents, the fraudsters managed to obtain €850,000, which represents about a quarter of all EU agricultural subsidies allocated to Romania in 2017.
Yet not a single cent of this money seems to have been spent on agriculture.
As soon as the subsidy was paid, the money seems to have been transferred to bank accounts in Italy, where it was swiftly withdrawn and used to finance other criminal activities, OLAF explains. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)