Allowing Oneself to the Community's Endowment? The Actors behind Subsidy Fraud

This paper seeks to establish a typology of offenders behind the capture of European public expenditure, carried out through a content analysis of EPPO press releases and a multiple correspondence analysis of the offenders prosecuted. EU subsidy fraud, unique from its domestic counterpart along several dimensions, occurs excessively and the issue is oly becoming further exasperated - with recent crises expanding the scope and amount of funds being redistributed by the Union, encouraging/enabling more people to offend and inspiring new modi operandi. Despite the severity of the problem, public attitudes are lax and academic research is scarce. Whilst fraud against a Member State is perceived as theft against one’s neighbor, fraud against the EU is often considered “victimless” or against a “far off EU exchequer” with some evidence suggesting Member State complicity. Moreover, among the existing academic literature, little work has been done to establish, systematically and empirically, a taxonomy of offenders. Through taxonomies (or typologies), social scientists can better analyze different offenders’ processes of activation and deactivation, helping to understand the correct policy measures to safeguard the Community's endowment.