A convenient but dangerous narrative has taken hold in European politics — that the migration crisis is primarily a problem of the migrants themselves. This is driven not only by the enormous sums the EU directs toward migration management, but also by growing political pressure from right-wing parties that exploit such scandals to criticize Brussels. Yet facts emerging across EU member states point to a different, far less discussed reality. Systemic failures, financial abuses, and signs of fraud are not occurring at the level of individuals — they are embedded in the very architecture of governance, where state functions are delegated to private entities without adequate mechanisms for transparency and oversight.
What is taking shape is an entire “migration industry,” in which public funds — both national and European — become a source of steady profit for intermediaries, while the actual recipients of assistance remain either undercounted or excluded from the system altogether.
A telling example is Catalonia, where in 2024 the Anti-Fraud Office (OAC) opened an investigation into the General Directorate for Children and Adolescents, the body responsible for minors including unaccompanied migrants.
The audit covers the period from 2019 to 2022. According to investigators, private organizations were being paid up to €4,500 per month per place in reception centers — yet a portion of those places, it emerged, were effectively empty.
The scheme appeared formally legal: the state was paying not for a child’s actual presence, but for “infrastructure readiness.” In practice, this meant that contractors could receive full funding even when centers were partially or minimally occupied. If even 100 fictitiously occupied places are assumed, monthly budget losses could have reached €450,000. The Catalan audit authority determined that no less than €4.7 million was paid out between 2019 and 2022.
In February 2026, the political party CUP filed a complaint with the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), given that part of these programs was financed with EU funds. According to CUP, European funds received by the participating foundations totaled €3.4 million between 2018 and 2024. The core vulnerability of the Spanish system was the state’s loss of control over primary data: occupancy figures came exclusively from the operators themselves, who had a direct financial interest in inflating them. This creates a conflict of interest in which independent verification is absent. Neither regular inspections nor cross-checks allow for timely confirmation of the accuracy of reports. The situation is further compounded by the payment logic itself — funds are allocated for “reserved” places rather than actual presence of minors, which incentivizes the inflation of figures. The result is a systemic space for abuse: from long-undetected discrepancies in reporting to the emergence of fictitious individuals and fraudulent invoices, as the state effectively delegates not only social functions but control over the very basis for public expenditure.
An even more large-scale example of corruption built around migrants is the 2024–2025 agreement between Italy and Albania. The project envisaged the creation of migrant detention centers outside the EU but under Italian jurisdiction. From the outset, it was beset by legal and logistical contradictions. Italian courts restricted the possibility of prolonged detention of migrants abroad, leading to the absurd practice of transporting people by sea to Albania only to return them shortly afterward. Against this backdrop, the Albanian infrastructure — designed for substantial flows — remained partially or almost entirely empty. Yet costs for security, staff, food, and maintenance continued to climb, all funded from the state budget. By March 2025, the Italian government was forced to reconceptualize the project, converting the centers into “repatriation hubs.” This decision amounted to an acknowledgment that the original model had proven economically and legally unworkable. Critics note that a significant share of the funds went to contracts with private contractors whose details remained opaque, while the cost-effectiveness of the spending remained dubious.
In Greece, the problem takes a different form. According to the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and other humanitarian organizations, by early 2026 thousands of asylum seekers had gone months without receiving the cash assistance payments they were entitled to — payments financed through EU funds. Formally, the funds are allocated on a regular basis; in practice, delays stretch for months. The paradox is that when payments stall, the contractors managing the distribution system continue to receive full payment for their services. If monthly allowances are estimated at roughly €150–300 per person, a three-month delay affecting 10,000 people could leave €4.5–9 million in limbo. Where exactly these funds go during the delays remains the central question to which the system has yet to provide a transparent answer.
In Germany, a payment card system for migrants — the so-called “Bezahlkarte” — was introduced in 2024–2025, designed to replace cash payments and limit the transfer of social funds abroad. Formally presented as a tool for greater transparency and control, it immediately raised a series of questions in practice: the criteria by which operator companies were selected, whether the cost of their services was justified, and whether hidden fees were adding to the budget burden. Experts note that when scaled to tens of thousands of users, even a modest service charge of €5–10 per person per month can translate into multi-million-euro annual expenditures. The result is a new segment of the “migration industry” — one where profit is extracted not through fictitious beneficiaries or empty centers, but through inflated financial infrastructure costs paid out of public funds.
The problem of the migration industry extends beyond individual countries. According to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the number of investigations related to EU fund fraud had grown by 35% by early 2026. A particularly illustrative episode was a verdict handed down in Madrid in February 2026. The defendant had for an extended period posed as a service provider for EU missions, using forged documents, fictitious contracts, and invoices for work that was never performed. Investigators established that he had constructed the appearance of legitimate activity: registering shell companies, conducting correspondence in the name of ostensibly active contractors, and submitting invoices to entities connected to European programs. Under conditions of fragmented oversight and complex approval chains, such payments passed without proper scrutiny — allowing him to systematically siphon funds until the scheme was detected. The case illustrates just how vulnerable the EU’s fund distribution system remains: it is enough to simulate participation in humanitarian or administrative infrastructure to embed oneself in financial flows and receive payment for services never actually rendered.
The examples of Spain, Italy, Greece, and Germany show that what is at issue is not a series of isolated abuses but a system built on the delegation of core functions to private contractors, the tying of funding to formal metrics, weak or purely nominal oversight, and a critical dependence on data supplied by the very parties executing the programs. This architecture is inherently vulnerable: it creates incentives not to improve the quality of services, but to optimize reporting to match financial flows. The result, across different countries, is a recurring set of effects — ghost beneficiaries, empty but paid-for centers, chronic delays in payments to actual recipients, and mounting expenditures whose justification grows ever harder to verify.
The evidence suggests that the problem with European migration policy lies not in the people crossing borders, but in how the resource management system is structured. Ineffective oversight transforms the humanitarian sphere into an economic model in which money is allocated to “manage the problem,” efficiency is secondary, and accountability comes too late. The result is a paradox: the longer the crisis persists, the more entrenched the market built around it becomes. And until that model is dismantled, any attempt at reform risks merely redistributing the flows — without eliminating the underlying conditions that make abuse possible.