Authorities raid OPEKEPE offices in EU aid fraud investigation

[InTime News]

Authorities person carried retired a caller raid astatine the offices of OPEKEPE, the enactment liable for cultivation subsidies.

The operation, conducted by the Economic Police and the Criminal Investigations Directorate, seized the implicit record of applications for 2025. Officers program to transportation retired cross-checks connected some existent and erstwhile years’ applications.

Digital files, hard drives and folders were transferred to forensic laboratories and the Financial Police arsenic investigators question grounds of further amerciable enactment and imaginable caller participants.

The raid follows a erstwhile audit by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) connected October 13, which examined OPEKEPE’s payments from 2014 to 2025. At OLAF’s request, each OPEKEPE staff were made available to assistance the audit.

So far, 13 radical person been remanded successful custody retired of 37 arrested successful transportation with the case. Among them are a 38-year-old alleged ringleader from Giannitsa and a 36-year-old lawman from Crete. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, working with Greek authorities, has mapped the organization’s structure and operations, which allegedly progressive collecting tens of thousands of euros since 2018.

Members of the alleged ringing are accused of raising the dormant to assertion EU aid, falsely appearing arsenic tenants of cultivation onshore and pastures, and submitting fraudulent livestock declarations.

Charges see transgression organization, assistance fraud, obtaining a mendacious certificates and wealth laundering.