More than 330 investigations into serious cross-border VAT fraud, with €11.5 billion worth of damage
(Luxembourg, 1 March 2024) – The latest Annual Report of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) shows that at the end of 2023, it had a total of 1 927 active investigations, with an overall estimated damage to the EU budget of €19.2 billion – 59% of which (€11.5 billion, corresponding to 339 investigations) was linked to serious, cross-border VAT fraud. This type of fraud often involves sophisticated criminal organisations, and is nearly impossible to uncover from a purely national perspective.
New sources of EU funding are also being targeted by fraudsters. By the end of 2023, the EPPO had 206 active investigations relating to the first NextGenerationEU funding projects, with an estimated damage of over €1.8 billion. This represents approximately 15% of all cases of expenditure fraud involving EU funds handled by the EPPO during the reporting period, but in terms of estimated damage, it corresponds to almost 25%. This number can only increase, in the context of the accelerated implementation of NextGenerationEU funding. In 2023, the EPPO also began to identify organised crime groups involved in this type of fraudulent activity.
Organised crime is fuelled by defrauding the EU budget
“The scale of fraud affecting the financial interests of the EU, in particular on the revenue side of the budget, can only be explained by the heavy involvement of serious organised crime groups“, warns European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kövesi.
“In our investigations, we see serious organised crime groups financing VAT fraud operations with money obtained from their other criminal activities. We see the same specialised operators laundering money from VAT fraud and the other criminal activities of these groups. Our strategy should be to cripple the financial capacity of the serious organised crime groups“.
