The evidence revealed by the Greek FBI’s Operation Harvest on the OPEKEPE scandal is shocking, as it appears that an extensive network that allegedly exploited OPEKEPE and its loopholes for years had managed to siphon off millions of euros through false declarations, fake data and illegal subsidies.
Investigations so far into the ring that operated at the expense of OPEKEPE have led to 1,151 defendants, many arrests and revelations that reveal that these are not isolated cases but organisations that had spread throughout Greece.
The journalistic analysis of Greek police data, which in the last six months has managed to dismantle five criminal groups operating from Crete to northern Greece, reveals the intense and long-term involvement of the organised mafia, which has nothing to do with the agricultural world, in the illegal siphoning of aid from OPEKEPE.
The files of the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime demonstrate on the one hand that the activity of organized crime certainly dates back to 2018, in another indication of the timelessness of the problems in the field of agricultural subsidies, and on the other hand, they refute the prevailing image that the fraud was committed mainly by farmers and livestock farmers with political connections.
“Harvest” with over 1,000 defendants
The operations of the IOE have been given the code name “Harvest” and had begun long before the OPEKEPE case was in the news, and the numbers are impressive.
Those accused of involvement in the five cases solved by the “Greek FBI” total 1,151. To date, more than 90 have been arrested, of whom at least 17 have been remanded in custody and about 40 were temporarily detained and have since been released on restrictive conditions. The damage caused by the activities of the five criminal groups has not yet been determined with absolute precision, as investigations are ongoing, but it is estimated to exceed €17 million.
“Here we are not talking about individual “small” cases. These exist too, obviously, and dozens of embezzlers have already been convicted by the judiciary, or are under trial,” a government source with knowledge of the whole effort to clean up the agricultural aid mechanism said, referring to the tens of millions of euros that have been frozen in various investigations around Greece.
“But in these five cases,” the same source continued, “we see organized groups, with distinct roles, graduation, years of action. It is a very different and important aspect of the OPEKEPE case, which is generally not known to the general public.”
The modus operandi of criminal organisations
From an examination of the five major cases, common patterns of action emerge. The criminal groups found parcels of land that had rights to crop and pasture subsidies but were not declared by other applicants to OPEKEPE. In many cases these were lands belonging to unsuspecting citizens, deceased persons and even the State.
Then, leading members of the criminal organisation or members with accounting skills would register the land in the property declaration of their associates or relatives, who ostensibly appeared as owners or leaseholders. With this fake proof of ownership, declarations for aid were submitted. The land entries in the E9 of the alleged owners were deleted shortly afterwards, in an attempt to erase the traces of the fraud.
Police officers even found that perpetrators posing as pasture owners were making sure to “inflate” the size of their herds, seeking even greater benefits.
In two cases, the criminal groups were supported by staff from the Declaration Reception Centres, which act as intermediaries between producers and OPEKEPE. In this way, the perpetrators either had access to OPEKEPE’s cartographic images and could more easily identify undeclared parcels of land, or they received favourable treatment in the registration of their applications.
One of the criminal groups acted differently: it set up two companies that distributed fictitious sales documents and fake seed certification labels. The illegal profits came when partners of the two companies submitted applications to the OPEKEPE, attaching the fake invoices as “proof” of their “activity”.
The wide geographical spread of the defendants is also striking, reflecting the high level of penetration of organised crime in the field of subsidies for the primary sector.
The first organisation to be dismantled, leading to the indictment of more than 40 people, was operating in Crete and Samos. The second, which was dismantled in early April and involved 290 people, was active in Kilkis and other areas of northern Greece.
Then, in May alone, the IAEA unravelled the activities of a group operating in several areas of Crete and two more groups that were “based” in Macedonia but whose “tentacles” reached as far as Crete, Athens, Santorini and Epirus. One of them, estimated to have been active since at least 2018, involved 404 defendants.
Systematic response
Detailed information also shows how much emphasis the Greek judiciary and police have for years placed on combating the illegal pumping of agricultural aid.
It is indicative that, according to reports, a total of 70 checks have been ordered for possible irregularities in aid by OPEKEPE, involving both natural and legal persons, with the first actions dating back to 2010.
“Every investigation requires a lot of time, data collection, thorough evaluation and cross-checking. We still have a lot of work to do, but it is always important to see an effort bear fruit,” noted a senior IEA official, who insisted on anonymity. “What matters is that we now have measurable results and with each case we also better understand how all these teams were formed and how they functioned,” he continued.
In addition to the extensive investigation ordered by the prosecutor overseeing the “Greek FBI,” there are completed and ongoing investigations ordered by both district attorneys and authorized representatives of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
