Two representatives of a Polish training company are under investigation over the way participants paid for EU-funded computer courses. EPPO announced the case on 16 September, alleging that the organisers supplied money to older participants and then presented the resulting registration payments as the participants’ own contributions.
The courses were held between December 2024 and June 2025. They were intended to help older people use computers and the internet safely, including awareness of online risks. The programme received European Social Fund support under the EU’s 2021 to 2027 financing framework. The alleged offence concerns compliance with the funding conditions attached to that support.
Those conditions required participants to pay a fee, according to EPPO. The authority administering the support was the Marshal’s Office of the Łódź Region. Prosecutors say the company sought to attract participants by offering tablets and giving them supposed donations equal to the amount of the required fee.
Participants then allegedly used that money to pay their registration charges. On paper, this made it appear that they had contributed their own funds, while EPPO says the organiser had covered the cost. The prosecution alleges that this presentation misled the paying authority and enabled the company to seek EU funding on a false basis.
The amounts involved divide into money already paid and money requested but withheld. The company received approximately €10,000, or PLN 46,800. It then sought more than €300,000, equivalent to PLN 1,311,550, for completed training sessions. The larger payment was put on hold after the financing authority was alerted to the recruitment method.
That distinction explains why the case includes allegations of both subsidy fraud and attempted subsidy fraud. The public statement does not say that the company received the entire sum it requested. It describes an initial payment followed by a much larger claim that did not proceed. Reporting all of the requested funding as a completed loss would overstate what EPPO announced.
The two representatives were detained on the Monday before the announcement. After questioning, they were released under police supervision and required to provide financial guarantees of approximately €16,200 and €4,700 respectively. Officers also searched their homes and seized documents and IT devices. The investigation is being conducted with support from the regional police headquarters in Łódź.
The allegation does not depend on a claim that the computer courses themselves were fictitious. EPPO describes training sessions that took place and focuses on the source of the participants’ financial contributions. A project can carry out an activity while still becoming the subject of a fraud investigation if prosecutors believe the conditions used to obtain funding were deliberately misrepresented.
A required contribution can be a material part of a funding decision. If an authority bases support on a participant paying a share of the cost, it needs an accurate account of how that share was financed. A payment receipt may show that money reached the organiser without explaining where the participant obtained it. The alleged donations are therefore central to the prosecution’s description of the arrangement.
The case should not be read as a general prohibition on giving a participant financial help or providing a tablet during a course. Its legal significance depends on the specific funding terms and what was represented to the paying authority. EPPO alleges deception in this particular programme. The announcement does not provide the full grant agreement or establish that similar assistance would breach every training scheme’s rules.
The older people attending the courses are not described as suspects in the announcement. Receiving an offer from a training provider does not, by itself, demonstrate knowledge of an alleged funding offence. The publicly reported case concerns the two company representatives and the method prosecutors say they used to recruit participants and claim support. Individual responsibility must be assessed on the evidence.
The suspension of the larger payment prevented further disbursement while the issue was examined. It did not determine the criminal case or establish what will happen to the initial payment. Those matters remain separate from the administrative decision to withhold funds. The investigation will need to establish the payment arrangements, the representations made to the authority and the knowledge of each suspect. Both representatives remain presumed innocent unless their guilt is established before a competent court.
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