On October 24, 2025, the Investigation Service, in coordination with the Prosecutor General’s Office of Georgia and based on a court order, arrested another member of an organised group on charges of fraudulently appropriating large sums of state funds, and initiated criminal proceedings against seven individuals, Deputy Head of the Investigation Service Department of Georgia’s Ministry of Finance, Guga Tavberidze, stated at a briefing.

According to him, the Finance Ministry’s Investigation Service is actively continuing its examination of the lawful expenditure of funds allocated as grants by the Legal Entity under Public Law (LEPL) Rural Development Agency of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia.

“We wish to present summary information regarding the operative, investigative, and procedural actions carried out at this stage. On October 24, 2025, the Investigation Service, in coordination with the Prosecutor General’s Office of Georgia and based on a court order, arrested another member of an organised group on charges of fraudulently appropriating large sums of state funds, and initiated criminal proceedings against seven individuals.

More than 1,000 investigative/procedural actions have been carried out in the case. As a result of large-scale investigative actions, it has been established that the leaders of the organised group obtained information about 219 beneficiaries interested in the state programme ‘Modernisation of the Beekeeping Sector and Market Access’, to whom they offered guaranteed receipt of the grant provided by the programme, arrangement of documentation to be submitted to the agency, and provision of co-financing funds; in exchange, they demanded and extracted from the beneficiaries the funds transferred as grants from the agency.

The investigation determined that, out of the GEL 12,935,750 allocated as grants to beneficiaries by the LEPL Rural Development Agency of Georgia’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, the cost of the works planned under the projects amounted to GEL 8,824,695. Members of the organised group have misappropriated the remaining GEL 4,111,054.

Members of the organised group also received and unlawfully misappropriated grants amounting to GEL 1,559,739 under another programme, the state co-financing scheme for agricultural machinery and the establishment of processing and storage enterprises, through the LEPL Rural Development Agency of Georgia’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture.

To complete the criminal acts, the accused fabricated and used false delivery notes, invoices and audit reports. To legitimise the exceptionally large amount of property acquired through criminal means, the leaders of the organised group purchased and registered immovable properties and vehicles in the names of associated individuals and legal entities. These assets were fully located and seized during the investigation.

At this stage of the investigation, the fraudulent appropriation of GEL 5,670,793.20 from the budget and the laundering of GEL 3,008,906.67 in illegal proceeds by the accused have already been confirmed. Twenty-one individuals have been held responsible in connection with the case.

We remind the public that in July and August 2025, employees of the Investigation Service of Georgia’s Ministry of Finance arrested 13 individuals on charges of fraudulently appropriating large sums of funds belonging to the LEPL Rural Development Agency and fabricating and using false tax and official documents, including the Head of the Projects and Technical Department of the Rural Development Agency and a former agency employee.

The investigation continues intensively to identify other members of the organised group, establish other criminal acts committed by them, and determine the damage caused to the state.

The investigation is being conducted under Articles 180, part 3, subparagraph ‘b’, part 4, subparagraph ‘a’; 210, part 2, subparagraph ‘a’; 362, part 2, subparagraph ‘b’; and 194, part 3, subparagraph ‘c’ of Georgia’s Criminal Code, which provides for imprisonment from 9 to 12 years,” Guga Tavberidze noted.