The grant was meant to grow the business. It became fuel for the mechanism
The case began with funding for a bakery sector entity. The funds came from the European Regional Development Fund and the national budget, under the Innovative Economy Operational Programme. In total, the Polish Enterprise Development Agency was to be brought to an unfavorable asset disposition of nearly 33 million PLN.
According to the evidence, the support application contained unreliable information about the value of planned machines and equipment. The mechanism was not based on a single false document, but was intended to operate more broadly, i.e. staged bidding procedures, inflated prices, related companies and invoices that did not reflect actual transactions. On paper everything looked like an investment, in practice every inflated cost increased the financing amount, and thus also the potential loss on the side of public institutions.
Paper will accept everything, the system does not necessarily
CBA determined that entrepreneurs had to issue and use 680 unreliable invoices with a total value of over 145 million PLN. Some documents contained amounts inconsistent with the actual transaction value, which was intended to result in about 10 million PLN of undue VAT refunds at the expense of the Treasury. The scheme did not end there. Investigators also point to money laundering using suppliers and machine manufacturers. This is not a single mistake, but a network of flows, documents and entities that was meant to give criminal funds the appearance of legal origin.
105 volumes of records and one test for the state
The investigation lasted years. From 2016 to 2023 it was conducted by the Gdańsk Provincial Police Headquarters, and then the Gdańsk CBA delegation took over the case. Officers gathered 105 volumes of main records, 32 attachments and over 150 pages of analysis. They interviewed 210 witnesses, carried out 45 procedural executions in nine voivodeships and obtained material with legal assistance from Italy, Switzerland, France and Slovakia.
On 24 July the prosecutor signed the indictment covering 10 people. Charges include, among others, fraud involving significant assets, falsification of truth, use of unreliable invoices and money laundering. Investigators also seized the suspects’ assets worth nearly 43 million PLN. Now the burden of the case moves from analytical desks to the courtroom. And that is where it will become clear whether the complex system of documents, invoices and connections will withstand the evidentiary test.
