An incredible allegation regarding declarations of fake animals by related individuals in the Farsala region has been forwarded to the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE), the Payment and Control Agency for Guidance and Guarantee Community Aids (OPEKEPE), and the European Public Prosecutor's Office. The case, which appears to be a family affair, involves four related families collecting hundreds of thousands of euros from OPEKEPE, not only for the animals they declare but also for practices they claim to follow regarding ecological schemes and organic farming.
The Farmers Service Center (KYD) and its involvement
The interesting part is that two of the four families use a large Farmers Service Center (KYD) in Larissa, which seems to be heavily involved with ecological schemes in the sense of using repeated identical documents for different farmers. This is because it appears that without the supply of fictitious documents, such as for animal feed, such a large number of animals cannot be supported; it is a matter of... ecology. According to data gathered so far by BN, the first family declares around 270 cattle, the second (spouses and son) declares about 1,350 cattle, the third family is a sole proprietorship declaring about 400 sheep and goats and 30 to 40 cattle, and the fourth family (father and son) declares about 1,100 cattle. The total number of animals declared exceeds 3,100, of which over 2,700 are cattle.
They even advertise themselves
Some of them even advertise their activities in livestock farming on Facebook. If one observes the evolution of the animal numbers, significant increases are found in some cases and significant decreases in others, a fact that raises questions about whether a "merry-go-round" system is being applied to hinder inspections. According to our information, however, an inspection was supposedly carried out by OPEKEPE and they found nothing. It is obvious, though, that it is no news that the "heavy artillery" of inspections were not effective at all, in the best-case scenario, and cannot be, even if Mr. Pitsilis might have such expectations.
Double and triple the actual animals
According to the allegations, the first family declares double the number of animals, the second triple, the third double the sheep and goats while having no cattle at all, and the fourth declares a triple number. Studying the data in our possession, we find that they declare vast grazing areas as rented and almost no privately owned pastures. However, the rented areas are nothing more than the distribution of pastures through the "technical solution". And the question remains: where are nearly 3,000 cattle actually stabled and grazed?. The investigation continues, as in 2025, when the control framework was supposedly strengthened, the amounts received by the aforementioned four families still total many hundreds of thousands of euros.
Nikos Karoutzos
nkaroutzos@gmail.com
www.bankingnews.gr
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