Sébastien Le Belzic // Photo credit: Valeria Ferraro / ANADOLU AGENCY / Anadolu via AFP
A vast dragnet in Italy concerning fraud with European funds. 22 people were arrested for embezzlement involving several hundred million euros thanks to a well-established scam.
An ingenious montage. The 22 suspects created fake companies, with the help of crooked accountants and notaries, and then applied for European subsidies. Subsidies for innovation, more precisely, as part of the post-Covid recovery plan between 2021 and 2023.
Italy, European champion of subsidy scams
Once the funds were received, they were transferred to bank accounts in Austria, Romania and Slovakia. But most of the money remained in Italy to buy villas, luxury cars, jewelry and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. The equivalent of some 600 million euros already seized by the Italian police.
Italy, the first beneficiary of the European recovery plan after the pandemic with nearly 200 billion euros received, or a quarter of the funds paid by Brussels. But Italy is also the European champion of subsidy scams with some 7 and a half billion euros misappropriated from European funds in 2023 alone.