Up to €1m is to be repaid to the EU after its anti-fraud office found that payments were claimed on some land near Rome’s Fiumicino Airport, but the land wasn’t farmed at all.

The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) found that “serious irregularities” in the case had been committed since at least 2005 regarding land located within the perimeter of the airport in Italy.

“The economic operator had applied for – and received – several tranches of EU aid in the framework of several EU agricultural programmes for the management and use of several parcels of land located inside the airport area.

“It turned out that this land has not been farmed at all. Moreover, the economic operator had no right to request or receive EU funds, as it did not have a legitimate title to or exclusive use of the land for which it was claiming funding.

“The production of documents proving such rights, which did not exist in this case, is a key condition for EU aid to be granted,” OLAF said.

It concluded the investigation by recommending the recovery of the total amount of aid received by the economic operator, about €1m.

Organic wine

In another case in Italy, investigators uncovered a fraudulent case targeting European agricultural funding aimed at promoting organic wine production.

A fake agricultural company was set up to purchase crops and harvest them for the organic production of wine.

However, it was found that the company did not respect its obligations to keep the land in good agricultural and environmental condition, to avoid using chemical products and to abide by the rules on organic farming on all the hectares of land covered by the project.

These were preconditions for it to receive EU aid from agricultural funds.

Crucial information

OLAF received crucial information from the European Investment Bank alerting the office that a red flag had been raised when a local bank had issued the company concerned with a loan granted by the European Investment Fund.

It concluded the investigation in 2021 by issuing a financial recommendation to the European Commission for the recovery of EU agricultural subsidies that totalled about €200,000.