Foreword

I am pleased to submit the latest edition of the annual report of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) covering the period 1 January to 31 December 2022.

2022 marked the year when hundreds of billions from the Recovery and Resilience Facility started to be disbursed to help Member States recover from the pandemic. OLAF disseminated a risk framework for the Recovery and Resilience Facility and provided over 50 fraud awareness-training sessions to Commission Departments, Agencies and others, including Member States authorities.

The year 2022 also marked Russia’s illegal, brutal invasion of Ukraine. OLAF has a long-standing cooperation with the Ukrainian authorities on both the expenditure and revenue sides of the EU budget. Since the beginning of the war, we have supported the Ukrainian anti-fraud authorities to ensure better protection of current and future EU funding.

2022 was also the year of the striking “Qatargate” scandal that rocked the European Parliament. This scandal revealed once again the crucial importance of ethics, integrity, transparency, trustworthiness, and accountability in public institutions, of following the rules, and of protecting those who report wrongdoing.

Integrity and trustworthiness are the core of what we in OLAF work to protect. It’s not only just saying the right things, but doing the right things.

OLAF’s unique mandate covers serious misconduct by EU staff and members of European institutions, and we will continue our work investigating in the Institutions to uphold transparency and accountability. Our role as an external investigative office is crucial to regain the trust of EU citizens.

Despite these significant challenges, OLAF continued its strong investigative performance. We concluded 256 investigations, issued 275 recommendations to the relevant national and EU authorities. OLAF investigations uncovered over €600 million affected by fraud and irregularities: we recommended the recovery of €426.8 million to the EU budget and prevented the loss of €197.9 million from the EU budget. We opened 192 new investigations and reported 71 cases involving possible criminal offences to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), 16 of which on behalf of the European Commission. And we helped protect EU citizens by working with national authorities to seize 531 million illicit cigarettes and 14.7 million litres of illicit wine, beer and spirits.

The OLAF annual report 2022 provides an overview of our investigative results and related OLAF activities regarding fraud and corruption and discusses various fraudulent schemes that include collusion, manipulation of procurement procedures, conflicts of interest, inflated invoices, evasion of customs duties, smuggling and counterfeiting.

Cases in the annual report highlight the broad scope of OLAF’s work and relate to cross-border fraud, fraud and irregularities in public procurement, fraud in an archaeological site, subsidy fraud and tender manipulation, breach of fellowship obligations, breach of public procurement rules by a public administration, nepotism and misappropriation of EU funds, joint-customs operations, and fictitious employment and unauthorised outside activities.

Importantly, this annual report also provides examples of good cooperation between OLAF, its partners in the Member States and third countries, and demonstrates how sharing critical, accurate, complete and timely information results in successful investigative results.

None of the achievements noted in the report would have been possible without the work performed by the OLAF staff, our most valuable asset. Therefore, I take this opportunity to express my deep appreciation to all my OLAF colleagues for their professionalism, hard work, commitment, motivation, and dedication.

Ville Itälä
Director-General of OLAF