Successful Judicial Follow-Up of OLAF Operation
8 December 2020 (updated 2 years, 1 month ago)
2018-Max_Planck_Herr_Wahl_1355_black white_Zuschnitt.jpg Thomas Wahl

Three persons who siphoned off more than €1.4 million from the EU’s Research and Innovation fund have been sentenced to jail. They were convicted in Genoa/Italy at first instance as a judicial follow-up of OLAF’s operation “Paper Castle” (eucrim 1/2018, 8-9), OLAF reported on 6 November 2020. The perpetrators had received EU money, in order to develop hover-craft prototypes for nautical emergency purposes. Instead, they put part of the money into paying off a mortgage on a castle. A system of fictitious companies was behind the fraud scheme that extended from Italy to London (UK) and to Delaware (USA). The actual castle was seized by the authorities.

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