Anti-Money Laundering teams raided the offices of the OPEKEPE, the national distributor of EU agricultural funds subsidies on Tuesday. Investigation reportedly focuses on 8 to10 people active in the region of Thessaly, central Greece. The raid preceded the resignation of a ruling party official, Kalliopi Semertzidou, “New Democracy’s coordinator for EU Funds and Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Secretariat of Agricultural Organizations of ND.”
Over the weekend, Semertzidou and her husband were alleged on social media and some news websites that they had received over 1.5 million euros in OPEKEPE subsidies.
In an exclusive report news website in.gr reveled on Monday, that the couple and members of their families had received 2.5 million euros in OPEKEPE subsidies from 2019 to 2024.
This poured oil into the rumors fire, with many Greeks asking on social media whether other families in the broader area had received subsidies of equivalent volume and together with opposition parties PASOK, SYRIZA and New Left put immense pressing on the government to deal with the issue.
ND official denies all allegations
In her resignation letter, Semertzidou who has denied all allegations right from the beginning, wrote, among others, that her family and she hav been “at the center of an unfair and targeted attack, with false and slanderous reports on social media and in publications, aiming to damage her personal and professional image,” so newspaper ethnos.gr.
“We are not involved in any case currently under investigation by the Hellenic Anti-Money Laundering Authority,” she wrote adding that her resignation is intended to shield the party from politically motivated attacks.
Anti-money laundering raid and its aim
According to media, the anti-money laundering teams will collect evidence, documents and electronic data in order to determine whether the subsidies received by the specific individuals were legal or whether they conceal other offenses such as money laundering.
If there are indications of money laundering through financial institutions, the purchase of luxury cars and a lifestyle that is inconsistent with the declared income, then the Authority will proceed to freeze all assets of the suspects and at the same time will forward any findings to the competent prosecutor for further criminal assessment, media report obviously citing a relevant press release.
Fierce attack by opposition parties
Following Semertzidou’s resignation, the entire opposition launched a fierce attack at the government urging PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis to resign as well or at least to “upgrade the party’s resignations system,” so PASOK and KKE demanding that “all illegal subsidies to be returned.”
Two ministers and several other officials of the ruling party resigned after the subsidies scandal broke out beginning of summer.
PS The scandal of OPEKEPE, the Greek distributor of EU agricultural subsidies, has put Mitsotakis’ ruling New Democracy under pressure not only by opposition parties but by its most loyal voters: the farmers and the breeders, who saw people foreign to the country’s primary production sector to infest millions of euros, while they got only a bag of peanuts.
