Dutch raids over EU budget crimes: officials

Dutch and European investigators searched homes and businesses in the Netherlands on Wednesday as part of a wider probe into EU financial fraud, officials said.

The searches were part of an investigation into “crimes affecting the EU budget”, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) said, without giving further details.

But Dutch media reports saying that the head office of the country’s tax authority in The Hague were raided were incorrect, they said.

The Luxembourg-based EU prosecutor’s office opened with much fanfare in June 2021, armed with a remit to probe fraud against the 27-nation EU’s funds.

“We are conducting activities in the Netherlands today, as part of a larger EPPO investigation into crimes affecting the EU budget,” Tine Hollevoet, a spokeswoman for the EU prosecutor, told AFP.

She confirmed the searches involved Dutch investigators from the country’s fiscal crime investigation service (FIOD), and two EU prosecutors “on the spot”.

“But it’s too early for us to comment on what this investigation is about, because it would endanger the outcome of the ‘bigger picture’.”

The Dutch agency, FIOD, said in a statement that it was providing “assistance to an international investigation”.

“Today, on behalf of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the FIOD is carrying out searches in various homes and businesses in the Netherlands,” it said.

Local media said dozens of FIOD vehicles left from the car park outside its office in The Hague early on Wednesday.

That led to a “misunderstanding” in some media that the Dutch tax office had been raided, since it is based in the same building as the FIOD, said Hollevoet.

Reports that the Dutch tax office was under investigation were “patently incorrect”, added the FIOD.

Last year the EU prosecutor said it was already probing suspected fraud amounting to 4.5 billion euros from some 300 investigations.