The Portuguese investigations underway at the European Public Prosecutor’s Office are worth almost one billion euros in estimated losses to community funds, with corruption cases representing around 25% of that value, according to official data released this Monday, March 2.
According to the annual activity report of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), for 2025, active investigations relating to Portugal until December 31 of last year totaled 102, representing estimated losses of 952.2 million euros.
Fraud with community revenue, namely VAT and customs tariff fraud, continues to represent the most significant value in terms of estimated losses in Portuguese investigations, with 515.75 million euros in 37 ongoing investigations in 2025.
Subsidy and payment fraud, which represents the largest share of ongoing cases, with 59 investigations, totals 413 million euros in estimated losses.
Of these 59 inquiries, 15 concern cases of corruption, representing 249.67 million euros, more than half the amount in question for the total number of payment fraud cases and around 25% of the total losses estimated in a hundred cases.
In a first reading of the data, which will still have to be in-depth at EPPO, the Portuguese European prosecutor, José Ranito, associates the increase in corruption crimes with the increase in fraud related to the Recovery and Resilience Program (PRR).
“The way the PRR works associates the risk of normal fraud that we had, for example, in cohesion funds, in competitiveness programs, it associates this risk with the risk of crimes attributable to political office holders, because the beneficiaries are public entities”, he explained, in an interview with Lusa.
In 2025, Portugal had 16 ongoing investigations related to PRR fraud, double the eight cases registered in 2024.
There is also a more residual number of other frauds, responsible for six investigations representing 22.55 million euros in estimated losses.
According to data released today, at the European Public Prosecutor’s Office there are 33 investigations opened by Portugal relating to fraud involving expenses not related to the award of contracts, 21 related to public procurement, 24 related to participation in organized crime and 22 related to money laundering.
Regarding damaged community fund programs, in addition to the 16 from the PRR, in Portugal there are 29 investigations related to fraud in rural and urban development programs, seven related to employment, cohesion and inclusion funds, five related to agricultural funds, among others.
The EPPO currently has 24 member states and functions as an independent and highly specialized Public Prosecutor’s Office.
It entered into activity on June 1, 2021 and has the power to investigate, file criminal actions, report and support it in the investigation and trial against the perpetrators of criminal offenses harmful to the Union’s financial interests (for example, fraud, corruption or cross-border ICMS fraud exceeding R$10 million).
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