EU prosecutors investigate alleged frauds worth €4.5bn
Luxembourg-based office aims to bring first indictment by year-end
Billion-euro sleuthing
Since its creation on June 1, the European Public Prosecutor’s office has opened 300 investigations with an estimated €4.5bn at stake, according to EPPO spokesperson Tine Hollevoet. “It’s quite an important sum,” she said.
Unlike the EU’s antifraud office, Olaf, the EPPO has the power to lead its own investigations and prosecute cases in 22 of the bloc’s countries. Poland, Hungary, Sweden, Denmark and Ireland do not participate in the project (though Sweden is expected to join next year).
Hollevoet said prosecutors aim to bring their first indictment by the end of the year, meaning that the first cases brought by EPPO prosecutors could be tried in national courts next year.
Some of these cases are ongoing investigations handed over by national authorities when EPPO started its activity, where the cross-border dimension and the EU money targeted gave the Luxembourg-based office the power to investigate. But quite a lot are new cases, including based on tips coming from the public, the EPPO said.
In one case in the Czech Republic, three people and three companies are under suspicion of defrauding the EU by filing fake invoices for alleged scientific projects subsidised by the bloc. The main suspect, a Czech national who is in police custody, is accused of setting up a complex web of offshore companies which he used to create fictitious offers and tenders to draw several million euros in EU grants from 2011 until this year. Czech authorities have frozen his bank accounts and seized his assets, which include more than a thousand model trains.
In total, authorities have seized assets worth €10m in the 300 cases EPPO is investigating.
In a separate case, concerning alleged cross-border VAT fraud worth €14m, police have raided the premises of businesses in Germany, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary. Hungarian suspects can be investigated and brought to court in a different country if the case is cross-border.
For now, none of the cases are related to the bloc’s €800bn post-pandemic borrowing programme known as Next Generation EU. “It’s too early still, money has just started flowing and contracts still have to be awarded,” Hollevoet said.
As for internal matters, EU chief prosecutor Laura Kovesi has returned €3.5m to the European Commission, as it was earmarked for non-staff expenditure. “We still need 120 staff — case officers, financial investigators — and she doesn’t want to spend the money on office plants,” her spokeswoman said.