The European Public Prosecutor’s Office expands its investigations into a fraud that affects COAG and three other agricultural organizations

2023-07-09 09:04:15

The European Prosecutor’s Office has expanded its investigation into an alleged fraud of 400,000 euros in agricultural aid from the EU, as specified in a June 9 order to which it has had exclusive access THE SPANISH NEWSPAPER, from the Iberian Press group. Depending on its content, the investigations already affect at least four agrarian organizations: specifically COAG in Granada, Huelva and Seville (Andalusia); and another three linked to the previous one: Young Farmers I Ramaders of Catalonia (JARC), Unió de Pagesos de Mallorca, and Unión Agroganadera de Álava-Arabako Nekazarien Elkartea (UAGA). All of them are involved in the case, which was opened in 2021.

In the procedures that investigate the European Public Prosecutor’s Office there is no possibility of popular accusationsand neither can legal persons be part of them as mere interested parties.

Precisely, the tax department headed by Concepción Sabadell agreed on November 19, 2021 the secrecy of the proceedingswhich was confirmed a few days later, specifically on November 24, by the guarantee judge, the head of the Central Court of Instruction number 1 of the National Court.

In secret

And the aforementioned agricultural and livestock organizations showed, through a letter addressed on April 10 to the Criminal Chamber of the National Court, their opposition to the fact that the case had been secretly investigated.

However, the Criminal Chamber of the National Court rejected the appeal outright, considering that it should have been inadmissible for processing because The regulations do not allow appeals against the order for validation of the secret declared by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.

He secrecy of the proceedings was kept for a yearsince it was raised by decree on December 19, 2022, from which time the parties in person were able to access the proceedings.

The National Police carried out last February two registrations at the national headquarters of COAG in Madrid and in the regional headquarters of Andalusia, in relation to a potential fraud of 400,000 euros. For their part, the representatives of this agrarian organization showed through a statement their “surprise and discomfort” at the information about the investigations provided by the National Police Corps. And they highlighted that “after a year and a half of investigation, we have not been informed of any type of irregularity to which the content of the same refers”, which according to their version only concerns a single aid of 33,000 euros linked to residences for foreigners who worked in the fields. This newsroom has been in contact with a COAG spokesperson who has preferred not to comment on the case.

At mallorca

The newspaper Majorca Newspaper, from Editorial Prensa Ibérica, announced that among the aid files investigated are twenty that were processed by Unió de Pagesos, which in the Balearic Islands is affiliated with COAG. The fraud would have occurred by presenting false aid files for the hiring of seasonal workers.

These documents were processed in Mallorca and had to do with the accommodation of seasonal workers for the grape harvest or harvesting of fruit and vegetable crops. He general secretary of the Union of Farmers, Sebastià Ordinasassured the Balearic newspaper that his union had not received any of this aid, and that all of them had been paid to COAG: “Our task was only to supervise that the accommodation of the seasonal workers on the farms were in good condition,” he settled.

In the Canary Islands

In the same sense, as Vozpópuli advanced, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office also questioned a group of Canarian farmers as investigated for alleged grant fraud. The body, which is investigating in some proceedings whether a crime was committed with the aid they received from the Canary Islands Government, has already taken a statement from some of them who appear in the initial complaint filed by an Administration official.

This public employee, according to the newspaper, alerted of irregularities “knowingly” such as the fact that some did not have worked or cultivated land or that what was stated in the business plan was not complied with (mandatory to be able to access these subsidies). In addition, he also exposed that the volume of business declared in some cases was not the real one and that one of the farmers had retired people working on the plots.