site.btaEPPO Searches Bulgarian Skiing Resort in COVID Subsidy Fraud Investigation

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) announced Thursday that it held searches in two hotels in a Bulgarian ski resort in an investigation into Covid-19 subsidy fraud. The resort or hotels where the searches took place are not named.

In 2020 and 2021, the company under investigation obtained EUR 220,000 from the European Social Fund (ESF) under three operational programmes. The subsidies were intended to compensate for the staff’s remuneration when tourism came to a halt during the pandemic. It is suspected that some of the employees were asked by their employer to return a part of the salaries they received and that documents were forged on their behalf to prove that they did receive the financial compensation.

The suspicion was reported by Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security and the searches Thursday morning were conducted by the National Police.