An Athens court has sentenced 57 defendants from Crete to prison terms of one to three years – suspended for three years – over fraudulent EU farm subsidy claims, in a case involving allegedly false declarations of pasture and agricultural land.
The sentences were suspended for three years. In addition, 28 of the defendants were fined between €500 and €8,000, while the court rejected all requests for mitigating circumstances.
The defendants were found guilty of falsely declaring ownership or rental of land in the Kastoria region in northern Greece for the cultivation of olive and almond trees, despite being based in Crete.
The case was brought by the Greek branch of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), which is investigating a wider series of alleged subsidy fraud schemes involving the former OPEKEPE payments agency.
The court ordered that trial transcripts be forwarded to the EPPO to assess possible involvement of three former OPEKEPE officials in Epirus, as well as potential criminal liability for additional officials who approved tax numbers used for subsidy payments in 2020.
