The French Mediterranean island of Corsica is the focus of a series of investigations into the suspected mass fraud of European Union agricultural subsidies. One of the alleged methods of the fraud is the fictitious declaration of swathes of scrubland as pasture land for cattle farmers. The sums involved are vast, and those suspected of the scam include some closely related to the island’s notorious and feared underworld gangs. Hélène Constanty reports.
The small hillside villages of Moltifao and Asco lie in the picturesque mountainous region of north-central Corsica, the French Mediterranean island commonly nicknamed “the island of beauty”, but which is known as much for its fearsome underworld clans as its breath-taking natural scenery.
