Suspects arrested in the fraud case are escorted to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in Athens, October 2025. Photo :EPA/YANNIS KOLESIDIS.

A court in Greece on Wednesday found 14 defendants guilty of illegally receiving EU agricultural subsidies in 2020 via the Greek Payment Authority for Common Agricultural Policy Aid Schemes, known as OPEKEPE.

The Single-Member Misdemeanour Court in Athens imposed jail sentences of 10 to 18 months, all suspended for three years. 

One defendant, whose name cannot be disclosed for legal reasons, was granted leniency and sentenced to 10 months because he expressed “sincere remorse”, his lawyer, Stefanos Hantziaras, told BIRN.

“He himself was a victim of people who assured him that all the documents he submitted were lawful,” Hantziaras claimed.

Several other cases focusing on the illegal receipt of EU funds are also ongoing in Greece. In October, police arrested 37 people allegedly involved in the so-called OPEKEPE scandal, accused of fraudulently obtained EU farming subsidies by making fake land ownership declarations.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, EPPO, disclosed in March that Greek stockbreeders between 2019 and 2022 submitted false declarations to OPEKEPE of ownership of land or falsified leases of land, which they did not own or had not leased, costing the EU budget 2.9 million euros.

Up to 2024, they continued to file false livestock declarations to obtain access to public grazing land, which they then used to activate and sustain their payment entitlements, the EPPO alleged.

The EPPO said in June that it had informed the Greek parliament alleged involvement of two unnamed former rural development ministers. Greek media identified them as Makis Voridis and Lefteris Avgenakis, who have both denied any wrongdoing. Voridis, who at the time was Minister of Migration and Asylum, resigned.

Several other officials resigned, such as deputy rural development and food minister Dionysis Stamenitis and deputy digital governance minister Christos Boukoros, as well as the secretary-general at the Ministry of Rural Development and Food, Giorgos Stratakos.

A parliamentary committee is currently examining the role of OPEKEPE in the fraud.

Wednesday’s verdict can be appealed.