Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis is implicated in directing EU funds to Crete, his political base, as part of a farm subsidy scandal.
Audits have identified 1,036 cases of suspected fraud totaling €22.6 million in agricultural subsidies, with 850 taxpayers in Crete recieving the lion s share of €17.2 million, media report
The revelation that the main beneficiaries of the fraud were in Mitsotakis political heartland in Crete is sure to raise suspicions that Mitsotakis has been de facto buying a network of supporters and votes using EU money.
Mitsotakis has tried to use his power in office to crush the probe into "extensive fraud schemes, including fabricated livestock declarations, false inheritance claims, and falsified property ownership records."
From media
New evidence has deepened the crisis engulfing Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government.
His office has now been directly implicated in a €290 million European Union alleged farm subsidy fraud scandal, one of Europe’s largest in recent years.
A previously undisclosed email sent to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) by Evangelos Simandrakos, former head of Greece’s farm subsidy agency OPEKEPE, alleged that the PM’s office was informed of and approved decisions to withhold payments to 9,309 ineligible taxpayer identification numbers (AFMs) in 2023, 63 per cent of which were from Crete, Mitsotakis’ political stronghold.
https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/07/greek-pm-office-implicated-in-alleged-e290m-farm-fraud-scandal/
Greek government ministers and senior officials are suspected of colluding in a massive farm aid scam to defraud the European Union of hundreds of millions of euros.
Greece’s Mitsotakis blocks probe into ministers over massive EU farm funds fraud
The prime minister is wielding his parliamentary majority to prevent a full-scale investigation into ministers suspected of wrongdoing.
Audits have identified 1,036 cases of suspected fraud totaling €22.6 million in agricultural subsidies, following a sweeping review of thousands of taxpayer records linked to the Greek authority responsible for the control and payment of EU agricultural subsidies, known as OPEKEPE, authorities said Tuesday.
Crete emerged as the primary hotspot, with 850 taxpayers there allegedly receiving €17.2 million illegally, investigators said. The findings came from an examination of 6,354 taxpayer numbers selected for further review out of more than 819,000 subsidy applications filed between 2019 and 2024.
The probe revealed extensive fraud schemes, including fabricated livestock declarations, false inheritance claims, and falsified property ownership records. Officials said the scale of the misconduct was unprecedented.
In Kozani, northern Greece, a woman is accused of collecting €980,000 in subsidies over five years for land she did not own, while members of a single family allegedly shared more than €160,000, investigators said.
“On Crete, the tightest, most closed groups have been created and operate within families,” stated a previous complaint submitted to prosecutors and OPEKEPE by local declaration centers.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1279716/crete-leads-in-farm-subsidy-fraud/
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