{"id":425349,"date":"2025-04-30T16:40:35","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T14:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/04\/30\/frode-fondi-strutturali-5-fermi-italia\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T17:15:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T15:15:16","slug":"fraud-to-eu-budget-and-structural-funds-five-people-arrested-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/04\/30\/fraud-to-eu-budget-and-structural-funds-five-people-arrested-in-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Fraud to EU budget and structural funds, five people arrested in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Fraud against the European Union budget, for misuse of more than half a million euros in structural funds<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/strong>In Italy, a criminal conspiracy involving European and national law enforcement agencies has been intercepted. At the request of the Palermo office of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), the Guardia di Finanza in Sant’Agata di Militello, Messina, triggered an operation that led to the freezing of \u20ac800,000, the seizure of real estate, and the closure of bank accounts. Five people and a society are suspected of committing fraud in EU funding related to the ceramic production sector.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The European Prosecutor<\/a>\u00a0Office<\/a> reports that, according to the evidence acquired, the suspects successfully claimed\u00a0structural funds for\u00a0approximately \u20ac560,000, mainly from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF<\/strong>) between 2018 and 2021,<\/strong> falsely declaring costs for the purchase of ceramic production machinery.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>The same suspects were\u00a0allegedly using a system of over-invoicing and false transactions to falsify costs, significantly inflating them, and to obtain tax benefits on transactions that never took place.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The operation once again\u00a0puts the spotlight on\u00a0Italy and the criminal networks that are\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>active in intercepting European funds<\/strong>. The same European prosecutor’s office has already\u00a0uncovered a\u00a0\u20ac600 million fraud to the detriment of the National Recovery and Resilience\u00a0<\/a><\/span>Plan (NRRP)<\/a>, funded by the Recovery Fund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Input by European prosecutor’s office triggers operation in Sicily: 560 thousand of European resources at the centre of tax fraud and false accounting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":341592,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25712],"tags":[27087,27089,27104,28439],"class_list":["post-425349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","tag-eppoand","tag-european-search-en","tag-fraud-budget-en","tag-funds-structural-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425349"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425370,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425349\/revisions\/425370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}