GULLIBLE EU officials are costing taxpayers £1.1million a DAY by handing development funding to fraudsters and crime syndicates, a Sun Online investigation has revealed.

Official documents show scams hit the Brussels budget for a staggering £420m last year - with officials identifying an eye-watering £2.7bn in stolen cash overall.

Among the dodgy schemes identified was a £26m mafia plot to claim EU subsidies for Italian farms that didn't exist, and £37m skimmed off a project to install environmentally-friendly streetlights in Hungary.

Our analysis of EU anti-fraud reports reveals there were over a THOUSAND potentially dodgy schemes flagged up in 2017 - with officials ordered to claw back over £2.69bn lost to fraud.

The funds could have built eight state-of-the-art hospitals or put nearly 100,000 new police officers on the front line.

But bureaucrats involved in misplacing the cash - £420m of which was lost in 2017 alone -were allowed to keep their jobs.

The EU’s anti-fraud watchdog recommended disciplinary measures be taken against 58 officials in just three years - but formal action was taken against less than half.

In one staggering case, a group of mandarins were caught trousering £35,000 in fake travel expenses - but couldn't be disciplined as fraud wasn't technically against their 'rules of conduct'.

And in 2016, an EU penpusher resigned after offering to reduce a company’s fine in exchange for £35,000 in "two brown envelopes".

Our probe shows how mobsters and crooked politicians raked in millions by taking advantage of well-meaning EU initiatives.

One damning report told how Bulgarian crooks spent years colluding with architects and high-level government officials to rig the tendering process for a road-building project.

After winning the contract, the gang used forged technical documents to claim £18million in subsidies before finally getting caught in 2017.

Another admitted that corrupt businessmen swiped thousands in kickbacks and backhanders from a £1.8million PR exercise to improve the image of Italian fisherman.

And a document from 2016 told how a Bulgarian gang leeched goods worth £26.7m from a programme delivering food to poverty-stricken Eastern Europeans - before netting a £6m profit by flogging them on the black market.

The figures - revealed in a cache of European Anti-Fraud Office documents - were last night branded "staggering" by politicians and campaigners.

Ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage blasted: "The Brussels bureaucrats never cease to amaze me in finding new ways to lose other people's money, yet even they have managed to increase their already staggering rate of fraud."

"For fraudsters and criminals the EU is a dream. Unfortunately thanks to Mrs May it seems British taxpayers will be footing the bill for years to come."

Chloe Westley, Campaign Manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance, added: "Taxpayers in Britain and Europe will be furious that so much of their hard earned money has been gifted away to crooks.

“The EU already wastes enough money on purpose, with an ever increasing list of programs and generous perks and pensions for bureaucrats.

“Those responsible for these mistakes really ought to have more regard for the families and businesses who are paying their wages."

A European Commission spokesperson said: "The Commission has zero tolerance to fraud against the EU budget.

"It is the responsibility of the Union’s Member States, who administer close to 80% of the EU budget, to ensure that EU budget is spent correctly in their territories.

"The Commission requires high standards of ethics and integrity from its staff. To guarantee this, we have strict rules in place that apply to all our staff.

"Measures are imposed on staff whose behaviour has been found to be incompatible with the Staff Regulations."