A Greek appeals court has convicted two men for their roles in a fraudulent farm subsidy scheme centered in Giannitsa, Pella, part of a broader network of illegal payments from Greece's agricultural subsidy agency, OPEKEPE.
The Three-Member Misdemeanor Appeals Court of Thessaloniki sentenced a 39-year-old man, described as the alleged leader of the multi-member criminal organization, and a 55-year-old accountant to 12 months in prison each, suspended for three years, on three counts of attempted fraud against European Union financial interests.
Both men are already in pretrial detention in connection with a larger case that emerged last October following an investigation by the European Public Prosecutor's Office and Northern Greece's Directorate for Combating Organized Crime.
The case decided Thursday, in which both men were convicted as accomplices to attempted fraud, involved farmers' subsidy claims from 2019 and 2020 and was investigated following complaints filed with Greek judicial authorities.
According to the indictment, the scheme relied on the same methodology uncovered in the larger European Public Prosecutor's investigation, which spans the period from 2019 to 2024: unclaimed "orphan" farmland was temporarily registered under unsuspecting individuals' property tax filings, then falsely declared as leased to farmers who applied for agricultural subsidies.
The same court convicted a farmer to a total of 12 months in prison, suspended for three years, for two counts of attempted fraud and one count of forgery, while a former deputy mayor received an identical sentence for falsely certifying the authenticity of a temporary landowner's signature.
None of the four defendants were granted mitigating circumstances.
The case was originally heard by the Misdemeanor Court of Giannitsa, which imposed the same sentences upheld on appeal.