The partner of Kalliopi Semertzidou, Christos Mageirias, goes on the “counterattack” regarding the subsidy amounts he allegedly received from OPEKEPE. Speaking to ANT1, he denies that he and his partner have received subsidies worth 2.5 million euros from 2019 to 2024.
Read: OPEKEPE: Preliminary investigation by European Prosecution after Kalliopi Semertzidou revelations
Semertzidou’s partner denies receiving €2.5M from OPEKEPE
“No, I have not received 2.5 million euros, I can tell you specifically what I have received from ’19 to ’24, I have received approximately €620,000, over these six years. Semertzidou Kalliopi, my partner, has received around €97,000 in subsidies, of which, and I want this noted, €87,000 is from the purchase of agricultural machinery.”
Christos Mageirias, who is being investigated by European Prosecution Authorities along with his partner, Kalliopi Semertzidou, states that no one from the authorities, Greek or European, has contacted them, except for the Tax Office: “No, they haven’t bothered us, only yesterday at 3:00 PM the tax office came to check the company I legally have for car rentals, they came to verify if the vehicles exist and if receipts are issued and if there are contracts with customers, they photographed the mileage of the new and used cars I have.”
Mr. Mageirias also refers to previous inspections by European and Greek authorities, noting that nothing illegal was ever found: “The European Prosecution has inspected me, according to the information I have, before these articles came out because it checks all large subsidies, the European Commission has inspected me, the Community Resources Anti-Fraud unit in 2005 again from a complaint that I didn’t have my livestock capital, and my animals were found to be correct again.”
In fact, he mentions that even the inspectors who visit his business… joke about the frequent inspections: “The same people who come know they come laughing and say ‘well, we came again, this is what we do, we came again, we know the formalities,’ they tell me this and people jokingly laugh, because they say what are they coming to see the obvious things that exist? The same inspectors never come, other inspectors come from other regions.”
