EU authorities have told officials in Italy to seize assets worth €175,000 in relation to alleged fraud involving funding for veterinary disease control.

The assets were seized today (Friday, June 5) in Sicily at the request of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO).

The EU funds in question are aimed at promoting veterinary public health, and are provided through the Sicilian regional government for projects involving the prevention and control of animal diseases and cross-border zoonoses.

Three senior public officials working at a public institute responsible for veterinary public health are suspected of using their positions to unduly obtain public resources for a private organisation controlled by one of the suspects.

The EPPO claimed that this private organisation, which employed all the suspects, gave the appearance of being the legitimate public organisation dedicated to preventing animal diseases and infectious illnesses, therefore duplicating the responsibilities of the public body.

The EU authority also alleged that the activities of the suspects from 2022 to 2025 appear to have led to shifting management of these activities from the public body to the private organisation, in order to obtain illicit advantages for themselves.

In order to compensate the estimated damage to the EU budget, a judge in the Court of Palermo ordered the seizure of assets belonging to the suspects up to the amount of €175,000.

The EPPO said all persons concerned are presumed innocent until proven guilty in the competent Italian courts of law.

Sicily

This is not the first time that Sicily has come to the attention of the EPPO.

Earlier this year, authorities made arrests and seized assets to the value of €1.4 million as part of an investigation into fraud of agricultural funds there.

According to that investigation, between 2018 and 2022, the criminal group, active in several provinces of Sicily, established fictitious companies to fraudulently acquire Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payment entitlements from Italy's National Reserve.

The alleged suspects were suspected of declaring ownership and possession of land that they did not own, and of falsely declaring acquisition of land parcels.