The European Prosecutor's Office in Bulgaria announced, quoted by "Lex", that it sent to court an entrepreneur who fraudulently received nearly 500,000 BGN for the construction of a farm for laying hens. He will be prosecuted for using false documentation to obtain the money from the European Union.
The defendant is the manager of a company that received European financing from the State Fund “Agriculture” for a project for the development of an egg production farm worth EUR 490,000 (BGN 958,459). In order to receive an advance payment, the manager submitted a bank guarantee, which was rejected by the paying agency because it did not meet the requirements.
According to the indictment, the man subsequently submitted a false amendment to the original bank guarantee, making it appear as if it had been issued by the bank with the necessary changes. In this way, he misled the payment agency, which made an advance payment of approximately 245,000 euros (479,229.70 BGN), equivalent to 50% of the funds, the European Prosecutor's Office indicated.
In addition, according to investigators, the farm for which the money was allocated was never built. If convicted, the defendant could be sentenced to 2 to 8 years in prison.
Until now, the European Prosecutor's Office, led by Laura Köveshi, cannot boast of cases against people from the highest levels of power in Bulgaria. From the report for 2023, it became clear that the European Public Prosecutor's Office has not a single conviction in Bulgaria and no prohibitions have been imposed or property seized. This year, however, the European Prosecutor's Office announced the conviction of a businesswoman because of subsidies for a car service. Before that, the European Prosecutor's Office in Sofia announced that it had taken the owner of a sheep farm to court, accused of fraud with subsidies and falsification of documents for 69,000 euros, and a month ago a dairy farmer was also sent to court.