Greek police arrest 37 in EU farm subsidy scandal

Greek police on Wednesday said they had arrested 37 people in connection with a burgeoning EU farm subsidy scandal in which millions of euros are suspected to have been illegally claimed.

A police advisory said the arrests had occurred in the greater Athens area, Thessaloniki, the island of Crete and other areas in an ongoing operation.

They followed an October 13 raid by the European Union's anti-fraud agency OLAF on the offices of OPEKEPE, Greece's state agency supervising the payment of EU support funds to farmers.

An EU probe has shown widespread abuse of funds handed out by OPEKEPE, which according to the government disbursed more than three billion euros ($3.5 billion) annually, mainly in subsidies to 680,000 farmers.

The case has put major pressure on conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis -- even more so given his family's decades-long political influence in Crete.

He has vowed to put those responsible in prison and to reclaim the funds.

The EU probe has found that most of the allegedly fraudulent subsidy claims came from Crete. Experts and media have pointed the finger at corruption and a system of patronage said to be rampant in the country.

Mitsotakis has stressed that the fraud, which Greek authorities estimate amounts to at least 23 million euros, began in 2016, before he came to power in 2019.