This is how the "sentinels" of Europol and the European Commission pursue fraud with European funds

on June 21, 2020

, the

and

are already

in the execution of these millionaire funds, whose deployment is being carried out in an accelerated way.

The funds "

seeking to illegally access these billions of euros of resources. Although safeguards have been put in place to

at national and European level,

that this it

has weakened some of the

and has already allowed

", warns Europol in its latest report on economic corruption in the Union.

This agency for police cooperation launched

in October 2021 -

, in English;

, in French - to track fraud in European funds, together with the European Public Prosecutor's Office, Eurojust -agency for criminal judicial cooperation- and

, the EU office dedicated to investigating fraud, corruption and misconduct serious in European institutions and countries.

This last office is dedicated to investigating

as a result of clues or indications it receives from abroad -among its ranks it has former members of the police from different countries or even former agents of national intelligence centers-, although it can also investigate specific cases on their own initiative, sources familiar with their procedure from Brussels explain to EL MUNDO.

"The prevention of serious cross-border crime is at the core of Europol's mandate, and we are fully committed to supporting Member States in fighting any

to infiltrate the legal economy of the EU and

"Our message is clear: any threat to the NextGenerationEU is a direct threat to the financial well-being of the European Union and its citizens.

and protect the rebuilding of our communities," said

Executive Director of

.

This organization knows that the 672.5 billion euros of loans and aid with which the Union's economies are being irrigated, to rebuild and transform them after covid,

who will seek the tax evasion, excise fraud, corruption, embezzlement, misappropriation and money laundering.

These networks have already been

and Europol and OLAF have intercepted some of them.

An example could be the

by the French Gendarmerie and the Israeli police for defrauding the French state of €12 million through

.

Once the benefits were received, the funds were transferred abroad and exchanged for cryptocurrencies.

"Apparently,

[including the

and Europol has decided to open a new line of investigation. In fact, the organization intervened last June in the dismantling in France of a criminal network to appropriate European funds aimed at unemployment," says the

It was perhaps no coincidence that the first meeting of the

project was held in

in September 2021, so that the judicial and police institutions attending could coordinate in the face of possible threats to recovery funds.

A second meeting was held in April this year, in

Europol expects that "

orchestrating

in order to defraud public funds."

And it warns that "billions of euros of public revenue could be lost through VAT and other fraud", which will harm the interests of taxpayers and, in the end, the ability of governments to finance essential public services.

"Cruising speed" in Spain

The main reason why these cases of fraud can occur is in

with which the authorities are deploying these investments, explains Europol, a pace necessary to be able to execute such a volume of funds in six years.

In the case of

, the Government has at its disposal a volume of

, of which

are received as non-refundable transfers -in exchange for meeting certain milestones and objectives associated with investments and reforms- and around

will be formalized in loans to repay.

The Executive has confirmed the request for the subsidies and is preparing an addendum to the Recovery Plan to also be able to access the

.

To do this, it will have to commit to carrying out

consistent with the

that the Commission has made to Spain in the spring package presented this week.

The money from the transfers is received through two mechanisms:

under the

and 12,436 million from React-EU.

Of the 59,168 million euros of the Plan,

, since its intention was to execute all that volume of spending to reactivate the economy after the pandemic.

Of that total, the Executive only managed to authorize (approve)

(94.2%) in 2021;

commit expenses amounting to

(86.7%) and

for them to distribute.

It is unknown, however, how many of these funds have reached the companies.

In practice, this means that the

-or arrival of funds to the economy- was very low, hence the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (

) has estimated that the

has been almost

. .

In

, the Government has promised to

which will be added to those that remain to be executed,

.

It is estimated that the impact on GDP will be new tenths, but this accelerated pace may entail

, that is why the "

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