They defrauded the European Union to pocket millions of euros of public funds for pastures that simply did not exist.

This is what emerged during the maxi operation "Transhumance", conducted from north to south by the Pescara Financial Police, directed and coordinated by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of the L'Aquila Prosecutor's Office.

There are 75 people involved, with 25 personal precautionary measures, 16 searches and preventive seizures carried out between Abruzzo, Puglia, Trentino Alto Adige, Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Liguria, Emilia Romagna, Lazio and Campania. The hand of the Foggia mafia and the Gargano criminal organizations is also suspected.

The investigations, carried out in collaboration with the organized crime investigative group of the PEF unit of L'Aquila and the special unit for Public Expenditure and Repression of Community Fraud, lasted 2 years with documentary acquisitions, interceptions of over 100 thousand conversations, 8,000 queries to databases and bank checks on more than 270 current accounts.

The investigative team thus revealed a criminal association which, with the aggravating mafia, defrauded the national and community budget with undue requests for contributions for the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) in the sector of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

To defraud Brussels, the criminal association which has been operating since 2014, of which 13 people are believed to be members , simulated possession of the necessary requirements to obtain the availability of land and corresponding CAP titles, issued free of charge by the National Title Reserve to new young agricultural entrepreneurs. According to the investigators, the new fictitious agricultural companies would have been in cahoots with as many agricultural cooperative companies or temporary business associations , set up to buy up thousands of hectares of land whose concession for civic use was put up for tender by the Municipalities.

The frauds ascertained by the financiers amount to approximately 5 million euros. Sums seized from 24 agricultural companies and 38 individuals, accused, for various reasons, of self-laundering, reuse of illicit proceeds, receiving stolen goods, aggravated fraud against the State and for obtaining public funds.