Italy is the largest beneficiary of the EU’s post-Covid economic recovery fund, with €191.5 billion in grants and loans to manage and spend. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government is under pressure to meet the fund’s spending and project completion deadlines.
Police said the alleged fraud was carried out by a criminal association including professionals with experience in applying for public funding, who helped secure cash for projects worth tens of millions of euros that were meant to improve competitiveness and digitalization in Italian companies.
Financial police reconstructed suspicious transactions and identified “the laundering of huge illicit profits carried out through a complex network of fictitious companies cleverly set up in Italy, Austria, Slovakia and Romania,” Italy’s financial police said in a statement.
The group used a “refined money-laundering apparatus … using advanced technologies such as cloud servers located in uncooperative countries, cryptoassets, and artificial intelligence to produce false documents.”
Over the past decade crime syndicates have become increasingly adept at siphoning off funds distributed by the EU for development and reconstruction. Criminal organizations have diversified from traditional income streams such as racketeering and robbery, in favor of pocketing EU subsidies that provide a more lucrative and reliable income stream.
Thursday’s operations are taking place across Europe with the involvement of police forces in Slovakia, Romania and Austria, and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO).
The number of fraud investigations related to the EU’s recovery fund soared in 2023, wrote the EPPO — which is responsible for investigating and prosecuting crimes against the bloc’s financial interests — in its annual report.
