The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) had 1,117 active investigations at the end of 2022, with total damages to the European Union (EU) budget for tax fraud estimated at €14.1 billion, almost half of which (47%) related to the VAT, according to a report published this Wednesday.

In 2022, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office received and processed 3,318 crime complaints and opened 865 investigations.

In addition, the judges granted the freezing of 359.1 million euros in EPPO investigations (compared to 147.3 million in 2021), which represents “more than seven times” the organization’s budget for 2022, he highlighted. the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in its annual report.

“A year and a half after the start of our activities, the potential of the EPPO cannot be ignored. In 2022, we have shown that the EPPO has an unprecedented ability to identify and trace volatile financial flows and opaque legal arrangements,” he said. the European Attorney General, Laura Kövesi.

The Romanian prosecutor stressed that her team has shown in its short life that it is “on the right path, but we have to do more,” stressed this expert in the fight against corruption.

“EPPO is far from reaching its full potential. If we want it to make a lasting difference, we need organizational and legal adjustments,” Kövesi said.

And he pointed out, specifically, “the revision of the Regulation of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and the assignment to the cases of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office of investigators dedicated and specialized in financial fraud in all participating Member States”.

Beyond the need to simplify its administrative complexity, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office wants to be able to exercise its competence for crimes such as smuggling under the same conditions in all participating Member States, the institution specified.

Otherwise, he warned that criminal organizations have a chance to escape prosecution simply by moving their activities to another country.

The European Delegated Prosecutors form the front line of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, working at a decentralized level in the 22 EU Member States participating in the EPPO, with their focus on complex cross-border investigations into sophisticated economic and financial crime, in particular when trafficking in serious organized crime.

In 2022, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office processed the majority of cases opened by national authorities that were transferred to it, and all new complaints on suspected fraud from all possible sources were processed.

Thus, of the 3,318 complaints of crimes that they received in 2022, more than half were from individuals (58%), which reflects the “great expectations” of citizens towards the European Public Prosecutor’s Office as a judicial body of the European Union, according to the EPPO.

Another positive for the EPPO is that there are now more EU fraud investigations launched in the 22 participating Member States than the historical average before the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has “the ability to identify links that have remained hidden until now “.

The clearest example, he said, is the “Operation Admiral” carried out last autumn in which, under the coordination of the EPPO, simultaneous investigations were carried out in fourteen EU Member States, including Spain, in relation to a complex scheme of VAT fraud based on the sale of popular electronic products.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office discovered in that large-scale investigation several organized crime groups responsible for VAT fraud estimated at 2.2 billion euros.

The five Member States that have not yet participated in the EPPO are Sweden, which holds the presidency of the Council of the EU this semester, Poland, Hungary, Ireland and Denmark.

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