site.btaEPPO 2023 Report: 203 Active Investigations in Bulgaria with EUR 884.9 Mln Estimated Damage

The European Public Prosecutor‘s Office (EPPO) put out its annual report for 2023 and it shows that there were 203 active investigations in Bulgaria for fraud with estimated damage of EUR 884.9 million. Five of these were VAT fraud investigations with estimated damage of EUR 28.2 million.

Three indictments were served for four persons. No Freezing orders granted in 2023. 16 cases were dismissed

The active investigations with a cross-border dimension totalled 10. 

The reports also shows that four ongoing cases were in the trial phase and one case was in the appeal phase. There were zero first court decisions.

Fourteen cases were referred to the national authorities.

EPPO opened 107 investigations in 2023 for cases which have caused an estimated damage of EUR 405.2 million

The EPPO acted on 13 reports or complaints from EU institutions, 163 from the national authorities, 47 from private parties and 2 ex officio.

The most common EPPO case by type of fraud was non-procurement expenditure fraud (a total of 143 or 50.7% of all cases) and procurement expenditure fraud (a total of 81 or 28.72% of all).

The most affected EU programmes in 2023 were regional and urban development programmes (58), followed by agricultural and rural development programmes (49), other programmes/doubt cases (44) and employment, social cohesion, inclusion and values programmes (20).

Bulgaria has 10 active European delegated prosecutors and 20 national European delegated prosecutors’ assistants.

The EPPO report says that after it showed in 2022 that the scale of fraud affecting the financial interests of the EU had been underestimated for too long, 2023 saw an increasing awareness about the EPPO among European citizens increased. That is seen in the 2,494 crime reports from private parties (29% more than in 2022) and 1,562 crime reports (24% more than in 2022) by the responsible national authorities.