The European Union's chief prosecutor, Laura Codruța Kövesi, has warned against criminal organizations having too much influence on democratic structures.
"In our proceedings, we see businesspeople, politicians or civil servants protecting criminal organizations," she told Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, in remarks published on Friday.
The European Public Prosecutor's Office is an independent and decentralized authority with the power to prosecute offences against the EU budget in national courts. Its focus is on crimes that are used to wrongfully obtain subsidies or contracts from the EU, as well as customs offences and Value Added Tax (VAT) fraud schemes.
Kövesi believes the extent of fraud with EU funds is underestimated. According to estimates by the Europol police authority, only 4% of criminally obtained funds in Europe have been confiscated to date.
She also said Germany is attractive to fraudsters. "It's a large economy, there are many companies, it's easy to hide things." However, the number of cases also shows that there is a good detection rate, she said.
"If we had the same level of detection of VAT or customs fraud elsewhere as in Germany, the situation would be better overall," Kövesi said.