Underwater searches ordered by the European Public Prosecutor's Office in Sofia recently showed that an EU-funded mussel farm in the Black Sea may be just sand. This is a project for an innovative black mussel farm, funded under the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Programme and located in the Black Sea, southeast of Cape Emine in the municipality of Nessebar.
The project was approved in July 2020 under a grant agreement with a deadline for implementation in September 2021. The farm was supposed to start operating in July of the same year. An expert from the Institute of Oceanology in Varna was named as the author of the technological project, but the investigation showed that he neither prepared nor signed it, BNR said.
Following a request for final payment, an on-site inspection conducted in August 2021 by the State Fund "Agriculture" found discrepancies between the declared and actual implementation of the project. Inspectors found only four buoys marking the site, and underwater facilities could not be inspected due to the lack of equipment.
At the request of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, on October 1 this year, investigators and divers from the Main Directorate "Border Police" - Burgas conducted an inspection of the seabed over an area of 240,000 square meters using underwater and aerial drones. As a result, three surface buoys were found at the specified coordinates, and one was missing. They were not even connected to each other. Underwater videos showed no traces of infrastructure related to a mussel farm, with only sand on the seabed.
For the implementation of the project, the beneficiary received the sum of over 280 thousand euros, of which over 210 thousand from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, and the rest from the national budget. The investigation continues with the support of the General Directorate of the "National Police".