Every day new details are revealed around the OPECEPE scandaland in particular how those who were – apparently – worked – operated.
Central conclusions have been imprinted on a check -in that had been made in 2020 when the former OPEKEPE President, Mr. Varas, had set up a small team in which he commissioned a sampling of 99 AFMs in order to ascertain, as he said in his report.
The head of this team was Mrs Paraskevi Thanropoulou who has also signed the final finding in September 2020.
In this finding, the way this fraud at the expense of European funds were made has been imprinted in detail.
A key finding of the research is that the subsidies were collected with fake, virtual rentals- contracts and there are a number of examples.
Indicatively, a producer seems to ask for one grant for a pasture that had leased from the owner in one year and the same pasture appeared to belong to another owner.
OPEKEPE scandal: Authority checking at least five years for European subsidies at least five years
In fact, it was described by Mrs Tyherropoulou as “A la carte properties”.
Also, a virtual indication is that the rental contracts for the pastures were with minimal or zero rents.
For example, 410 acres were credited instead of 60 euros for two years, ie for € 0.95 per acre.
A… white (paper)
It is worth noting that, then addressed to CA Vara, Ms Thanropoulou said that the control procedure is standardized and does not highlight the cases of fraud.
In fact, he stresses that in the electronic system used until recently, it was enough to scan a document that was not white!.
If it were not white, the system could evaluate it either as a rental contract or anything else.
He also points out that the audit procedures were known to the applications and so since the control procedures were known, the tricks with which they could avoid them were also known.
In total of the 99 rumors controlled, the pastures were publicly owned, in their majority were public.
He concludes, underlining the fact that producers are accurately aware of the coordinates of the land, which refers to the help from the operators of the artificial solution, that is, the organization or company itself with which OPECEPE was contracted to manage these applications.
When the then President of OPEKEPE, Mr. Varas, received this finding, changed the control procedure in a circular, was forced to resign and when the new president resigned, he changed the circular to the fairer, as it was before.