The photovoltaic system was supposed to be installed on a farm. A €45,200 contribution from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan had already arrived. Unfortunately, however, the panels ended up on a luxury villa in the Terralbese countryside . This was fraud, according to the Oristano Financial Police, who, after a thorough investigation, reported the entrepreneur for undue receipt of public funds.

The investigation
The investigation, prompted by information from the Rome-based Special Unit for Public Spending and EU Fraud Prevention, uncovered several irregularities in the submission of grant applications to improperly obtain funding for renewable energy projects. "These are non-repayable grants awarded by the European Union under the Next Generation EU program to boost public and private investment, ranging from 30 to 80 percent of the expenditure incurred for the construction of photovoltaic systems essential to the operations of businesses operating in the agricultural, livestock, and agro-industrial sectors, to companies that declare a turnover of more than €7,000," according to a statement from the Guardia di Finanza.

The anomalies

Investigations by the Oristano Group revealed "the undue receipt of a NRRP contribution of €45,200 for the installation of a photovoltaic system." According to the financial police, the application for the grant was ineligible because the individual company had not achieved the expected turnover (it was zero) and, more importantly , had not allocated the system to a company building but to a luxury villa, used as a residence .

The entrepreneur has been reported to the Oristano Public Prosecutor's Office and the European Public Prosecutor's Office, and a report has also been filed with the Regional Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Auditors.

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