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(Luxembourg, 4 April 2024) – In the context of an international large-scale investigation led by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Venice (Italy), dozens of searches and seizures took place, and 22 arrests were made today in Italy, Austria, Romania and Slovakia, in a probe into an alleged criminal organisation suspected of defrauding €600 million from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) for Italy.
In Italy, the Financial Police (Nucleo di Polizia Economico Finanziaria – Guardia di Finanza) from Venice executed an order for freezing issued by the pre-trial judge on assets worth, in total, over €600 million. With the support of law enforcement agencies from the other Member States involved, 22 individuals have been arrested in Italy, Austria, Romania and Slovakia. Eight suspects have been placed under pre-trial detention, whereas other 14 suspects are held under house arrest, and one accountant was prohibited from practising his profession. The premises of the suspects and of the investigated companies have also been the target of searches and seizure of evidence.
On the radar of the EPPO is a criminal association suspected of orchestrating, between 2021 and 2023, a fraud scheme to obtain funds from the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), part of the RRF, the main pillar of the NextGenerationEU recovery plan.
In 2021, the members of the criminal association applied for receiving non-repayable grants to support digitalisation, innovation and competitiveness of small and medium-size companies, with the purpose of expanding their business activities to foreign markets. The suspects allegedly created and deposited false corporate balance sheets to show that the companies were active and profitable, whereas in fact they were non-active, fictitious companies.
It is alleged that a network of accountants, service providers and public notaries supported the suspects to successfully obtain €600 million in non-refundable funds from the Italian NRRP in the timespan of two years. The suspects transferred the funds to their bank accounts in Austria, Romania and Slovakia as soon as they received the advance payments.
The subjects under investigation used advanced technologies, such as VPNs, cloud servers located abroad, crypto-assets and artificial intelligence software, in order to carry out the fraudulent conducts and to conceal and protect the illegal business.
All persons concerned are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in the competent Italian courts of law.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) is the independent public prosecution office of the European Union. It is responsible for investigating, prosecuting and bringing to judgment crimes against the financial interests of the EU.