According to data from the annual activity report of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), released this Friday, the 26 investigations opened in 2023 represent an estimated loss to the community budget of 186.6 million euros.
Of the 43 active investigations, 15 concern VAT fraud and the resulting loss is estimated to be 848.5 million euros.
In 2023, Portugal obtained a court order to freeze assets worth 12.3 million euros.
The country has an indictment produced last year, within the scope of the so-called Operation Admiral, which accused 27 defendants – 12 people and 15 companies – for crimes of criminal association, corruption, tax fraud and money laundering and in which, for acts carried out only in Portugal, tax fraud of around 80 million euros is estimated through a chain of companies that evaded paying VAT, with “the use of false invoices and fraudulent tax declarations”according to EPPO in a statement in December.
Portugal has not yet concluded any case and only the Operation Admiral process is in the trial phase.
In 2023 Portugal received 41 complaints and reports, mostly from national authorities.
VAT fraud is a part of crimes
Despite representing almost all of the estimated losses in active investigations, VAT fraud represents only 31% of crimes under investigation by national European prosecutors at EPPO, with money laundering representing 21% of crimes under investigation and fraud in obtaining of subsidies 13% of crimes.
Community funds for agriculture and rural development, for urban and regional development and the recovery and resilience program are the European funding programs with the most cases under investigation by national prosecutors.
EPPO currently has 22 member states (Portugal, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Spain, France, Finland, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Romania , Slovenia and Slovakia) and has Public Prosecutor José Ranito as the Portuguese European prosecutor.
The body, which functions as an independent and highly specialized Public Prosecutor’s Office, entered into activity on June 1, 2021 and has the power to investigate, initiate criminal proceedings, bring charges and sustain them in the investigation and trial against the perpetrators of criminal offenses. harmful to the Union’s financial interests (e.g. fraud, corruption or cross-border VAT fraud exceeding €10 million).
Community budget damaged by 11.5 thousand ME
VAT fraud represents 11.5 billion euros and almost 60% of the losses caused to community funds in investigations by the European Public Prosecutor’s Officewhich warns of the lack of means to combat criminal organizations conceived as companies.
According to data from the 2023 activity report of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) released today, the organization had opened 1,371 investigations in 2023, bringing the total number of ongoing investigations to 1,927, which represent financial losses for the Union European Union estimated at 19.2 billion euros, 59% of which relate to VAT fraud.
Even so, EPPO managed to secure the freezing of assets worth a total of 1.5 billion euros with court orders.
More than 200 ongoing investigations, with losses estimated at 1.8 million euros, concern “NextGenerationEU”, the green and technological transformation program for community space created in response to the pandemic period, which is now starting to make payments and which was the basis of recent warnings from European Attorney General Laura Kövesi, now reiterated, regarding the need to reinforce EPPO resources to combat crime associated with financing.
