Agricultural unionist of the Malgara roadblock, Kostas Anestidis, under investigation for illegal subsidies of €122,000

The unionist Konstantinos Anestidis of the Malgara roadblock is under preliminary investigation following a prosecutor’s order, within the framework of checks carried out by the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime, concerning an alleged case of false declarations of agricultural plots aimed at obtaining agricultural subsidies. As established by the inspections, Konstantinos Anestidis received illegal financial support amounting to €122,765.04 for 16 agricultural plots in which discrepancies were found in his declarations.

How it was identified

The case emerged after a prioritized audit of Single Payment Scheme declarations, based primarily on two criteria: the submission of false declarations of agricultural plots and the amount of the subsidy paid, which exceeded €10,000. Through this process, the tax identification number corresponding to Konstantinos Anestidis was identified.

Subsequently, the competent services proceeded with a detailed audit of the Single Payment Scheme Applications he submitted to O.P.E.K.E.P.E. for the years 2019 through 2024. During the audit, the ownership status of the areas declared as cultivated was examined, in order to grant the corresponding financial support.

As it emerged, discrepancies were identified between cadastral data and the declared ownership for a total of 16 agricultural plots, which had been declared either as privately owned or as leased in the applications for the years 2019–2024.

For this reason, the competent authorities formally contacted the Payment Organization to determine the amounts that had been paid for the specific plots. According to an official document from the Organization, Konstantinos Anestidis received total financial support of €122,765.04 for these 16 agricultural plots.

At the same time, the same data show that the total amount of subsidies received by the person under investigation for the period 2019–2024 amounted to €210,550.22.

Finally, according to the records of the Payment Organization, Konstantinos Anestidis also submitted a new Single Payment Scheme Application for the year 2025, in which he declared a total of 17 agricultural plots. The vast majority of these coincide with plots that had been declared in previous years and for which strong indications of false declaration have already emerged.