A loophole allowing people to obtain agricultural subsidies they were not entitled to receive through Greece’s OPEKEPE payment agency was widely known among subsidy application centers, according to the owner of three declaration centers interviewed by Kathimerini.
“Some centers even promoted it by word-of-mouth to attract clients,” said the man, identified only as KS, whose full details are known to the newspaper.
KS said privately run Centers for Receiving Declarations expanded rapidly after 2015, when certification was opened beyond agricultural cooperatives. The same year, applicants were allowed to request grazing land subsidies without owning livestock.
“At first not everyone knew it. Gradually it spread, and from 2016 everyone started filing grazing land declarations without animals wherever they could,” he said.
According to KS, all centers had access to national maps showing undeclared grazing areas. Applicants allegedly used fake lease agreements, false phone numbers and email addresses, while subsidy payments were linked to tax identification numbers and bank accounts.
