The Judiciary Police (PJ) carried out a police operation today, which led to the detainment of three defendants, two of them were arrested under the suspicion of corruption, fraud in obtaining aggravated subsidy, qualified tax fraud, and money laundering, having damaged the Portuguese State and the European Union (EU) for about seven million euros.
According to a statement from the PJ, the defendants and detainees in the ‘Cash Flow’ operation are suspected of having set up a company with the intention of applying for financial support from the EU. Subsequently, they submitted it to a project to the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), where they undertook to create an industrial establishment for the production of pellets, in the city of Guarda.
The investigation, conducted by the National Anti-Corruption Unit, found that “to carry out the criminal plan, the suspects developed several schemes, namely the capitalization of a company for about two million and five hundred thousand euros, coming from another, based in the Madeira Free Trade Zone, since the granting of the financial incentive was conditional on the presentation of, at least 25% of the project’s equity.”
The PJ adds that “the suspects will also have inflated expenses, entered into simulated contracts, and omitted the acquisition of logistics equipment from a company based in a country with privileged taxation.”
“All these actions aimed at the presentation of a project with increased costs, thus increasing the chances of benefiting from a higher incentive, but given their illegality, the expenses presented could not be considered eligible and, consequently, the financial incentive could not have been awarded.” States a police source.
According to the PJ, “from the preparation of the application, through its submission, false, inaccurate and incomplete information was provided to IAPMEI, regarding important facts for the respective granting of the subsidy.”
In the course of the investigation, it was also possible to ascertain that the suspects have stakes in several Portuguese and foreign commercial companies, resulting in strong indications that they use the banking system to circulate funds between bank accounts in Equatorial Guinea, Luxembourg, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, and Portugal, held in the names of family members and associated companies.
The ‘Cash Flow’ operation, carried out in the districts of Lisbon, Porto, Guarda, Braga, Vila Real, in the Autonomous Region of Madeira and in Spain, aimed at the execution of 24 search warrants, 9 domiciled and 15 non-domiciled, and had the participation of 102 inspectors, four experts from the Technological and Computer Forensics Unit and five experts from the PJ’s Financial and Accounting Forensics Unit.
The detainees will be present for the first judicial interrogation at the Central Court of Criminal Investigation of Lisbon, for the application of coercive measures.
This article was first published on www.policiajudiciaria.pt.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
