Ville ITÄLÄ, Director-General of the European Anti-Fraud Office, presents the OLAF annual report 2020 to the members of the EP Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT) in the European Parliament in Brussels. Statement by Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), CONT Chair on the OLAF 2020 activities in its fight to protect the EU budget and to keep citizens safe from counterfeit or substandard medical equipment linked to the coronavirus pandemic.

OLAF annual report 2020: extracts from the presentation by Ville ITÄLÄ, OLAF Director-General and statement by Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), CONT Chair

SOUNDBITE (English), Ville IT&#196;L&#196;, Director-General OLAF, Despite the pandemic, 2020 was a year, like many others before it, at least in terms of the results of OLAF work. We closed 230 investigations to 2020 and made 375 recommendations to the relevant national and EU authorities, including the recovery of 293.4 million. We opened 290 new investigations after receiving more than 1000 preliminary analyses of information.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ville IT&Auml;L&Auml;, Director-General OLAF, Since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, OLAF has been collecting and analysing information and intelligence concerning the arrival into the EU of personal protective equipment and medical supplies, including facemasks, medical devices, disinfectants, sanitisers medications, and test kits. On the 19th March OLAF officially opened an enquiry concerning the import of fake covid 19 related products, which are ineffective or even detrimental to help. Our investigation contributed to seizure of over 44 million counterfeit or substandard personal protection items.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ville IT&Auml;L&Auml;, Director-General OLAF, One example, OLAF, together with Romanian and Belgian authorities, in a so-called joint investigation team uncovered a complex money laundering scheme in relation to a tender procedure organised by Romanian public company for a contract to develop new road infrastructure projects. You can find more details of this investigated case on page 19 of the OLAF report in which OLAF recommended the recovery of 25 million euros in EU funds defrauded as part of the scheme. 

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), CONT Chair, We were facing the situation that we had no industrial production on certain on certain goods, explicitly on masks, especially on hand sanitisers, on several test kits, goods and so on and so on. So we needed to import products of third states. And in this time there were criminals around and they produced fake masks, fake test kits, fake hand sanitisers or other kind of sanitising goods. So there were quite, quite a lot of fake products in the European Union and OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office) was able to trace it back together with other bodies like Europol or or other member states' authorities, and to reveal that a lot of test kits were were faked. So they were really doing a preventive work for the population to avoid that perhaps people believe that their hands are disinfected and in reality they are not.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), CONT Chair, We saw that the amounts of cases are increasing. So Olaf really needs more staff to really to trace back all these kind of cases, it's the same case for EPPO (European Public Prosecutor's Office), EPPO needs more staff.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), CONT Chair, They revealed special problems in the agricultural programmes and explicitly that organised crime is now attracted by European money more and more, and that explicitly the situation that we are not able at the moment to trace back the money in a digital way in all member states, that this phenomenon is used by organised crime to misuse European funds for their purposes.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), CONT Chair, We must support OLAF. They bring more money back to the European Union. They protect more money as they are costing.

OLAF annual report 2020: extracts from the presentation by Ville ITÄLÄ, OLAF Director-General and statement by Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), CONT Chair

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OLAF annual report 2020: extracts from the presentation by Ville ITÄLÄ, OLAF Director-General and statement by Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), CONT Chair

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CONT - Committee on Budgetary Control