European Public Prosecutor's Office: Mussel farm turned out to be just sand.

Underwater searches, ordered by the European Public Prosecutor's Office in Sofia, recently revealed that an EU-funded mussel farm in the Black Sea may be nothing but sand. This refers to a project for an innovative black mussel farm, funded under the Maritime and Fisheries program and located in the Black Sea, southeast of Cape Emine in the municipality of Nessebar, the institution reported. The project was approved in July 2020 under a grant agreement with a deadline for completion in September 2021. The farm was supposed to start operating in July of the same year. An expert from the Institute of Oceanography in Varna was named as the author of the technological project, but the investigation showed that he neither prepared nor signed it. Following a request for final payment, an on-site inspection conducted in August 2021 by the State Fund "Agriculture" found discrepancies between the declared and actual implementation of the project. Inspectors found only four buoys marking ...