In Italy Recovery Fund fraud, bank accounts worth 114 thousand euro frozen

Brussels –Falsifying financial statements by indicating higher revenues than actual ones to obtain funding from the Recovery Fund to develop an e-commerce platform: on this charge, at the request of the European Public Prosecutors Office, the Italian Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza) in Giulianova (Teramo) froze assets worth 114 thousand euros in Italy on charges of fraud against the Union budget. The investigation is on a company active in the non-specialized wholesale trade of food and tobacco.

The company submitted a request to SIMEST, the Italian financial institution for the development and promotion of the activities of Italian companies and responsible for managing and distributing Recovery Funds in these projects, which granted the company 228,000 in total. Thanks to a swift investigation, the second payment of 114,000 was never disbursed as the irregularities were detected and reported by the Guardia di Finanza. Hence, the freezing of bank accounts worth 114 thousand.

The fraud report turns the spotlight again on criminality revolving around EU resources. The same European Public Prosecutor recently discovered 600 million euros worth of fraud again with the Recovery Fund, which finances member states’ recovery plans (NRRP), raising the issue of the ability to properly manage the funds, which politically remains a sensitive issue.