The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Zagreb (Croatia) has opened an investigation against two Croatian citizens on suspicion of fraud involving agricultural subsidies. The two suspects were arrested on Wednesday at the request of the EPPO as part of an investigation carried out in cooperation with the Primorsko-Goranska County Police Administration.

The suspects, the managing director of a company and its procurator, are suspected of wrongfully applying for non-repayable subsidies between October 2021 and 17 October 2022, 85% of which are co-financed by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and 15% by the Croatian state budget.

The suspects provided false information

The suspects submitted an application on behalf of the company to the Paying Agency for Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development under the public call ‘Support for Investments in Agricultural Holdings’ for support totalling almost half a million euros (€497,976), with the project having a total value of €711,394.31.

The investigation found that they falsely claimed in their application that the company met the mandatory eligibility requirement of economic size.

In order to obtain the required certificate to be attached to the application, the suspects made two false statements to an official of the Ministry of Agriculture, claiming that the requirements were met when they were not.

In addition, the suspects falsely stated that the company had an employee with an agricultural or biotechnological background and was a member of an agricultural co-operative, which gave them an unfair advantage in the evaluation of the award procedure.

The Paying Agency discovered elements of fraud during the administrative processing and decided not to pay out the non-refundable subsidies.