Homes have been searched and assets frozen following allegations of fraudulent payments costing over €500,000.
ADVERTISEMENTA Lithuanian former MEP is now part of a spiralling probe into alleged fraudulent payments worth over €500,000, EU prosecutors announced today.
Lithuanian prosecutors have confirmed to news site BNS that the suspect is ex-MEP Viktor Uspaskich, who has denied the allegations in separate remarks to media.
“The former MEP is now officially suspected of abuse of office, falsification and use of false documents, illegal acquisition, possession and use of an electronic document, as well as the acquisition of high value foreign assets,” the EPPO said in a statement, adding that people are innocent until proven guilty.
In remarks to Lithuanian news site 15 Minutes, Uskpaskich said the allegations were “unfounded,” adding that he’d been notified about the suspicions, but hadn’t yet met with law enforcement to discuss them.
The EPPO statement details searches conducted at the homes and workplaces of the suspects, of whom there are two, and “large-scale temporary restrictions on property rights” to ensure the EU budget can be compensated should wrongdoing be shown, it added.
In an earlier, March statement, at a time when the probe only concerned a MEP’s staffer, the EPPO said the case concerned someone imitating the functions of an EU parliamentary assistant, including suspected document forgery, and that the suspect worked for Lithuania’s Labour Party.
Uspaskich, the only MEP for the Labour Party for the whole of the 2014-2019 period cited, was in the last mandate the highest-earning MEP from outside income.
He cited around €3 million a year from a company called Edvervita, which, according to local media, he owns and which has significant commercial property interests in Russia.
In 2021, he was kicked out of the centrist Renew Europe coalition for homophobia, and is no longer an MEP following 2024 elections.
The EPPO, responsible for probing and bringing to judgment crimes involving EU financial interests, has declined to reveal more information during the pre-trial investigation.
In 2023, the EPPO seized over €170,000 from right-wing Italian MEP Stefania Zambelli and four assistants, based on suspicions that they hadn’t carried out the functions they were hired for, and in 2019 the EU’s top court upheld a similar case regarding Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right National Rally.
Uspaskich has not responded to requests for comment sent via email, Facebook, Edvervita and his party’s spokesperson.