A family of Finns living in the Algarve has been accused of defrauding the State to the tune of €200,000 by diverting agricultural grants that were never used for their intended purpose.
The missing grant money has been traced through a myriad of bank transfers to an offshore account in Delaware and Pedro Ribeiro, the chairman of the Institute for the Financing of Agriculture and Fisheries, is keen to progress with a damages claim to try and get the money back.
The Finns received grants of over €200,000 for a project to plant new olive trees at their farm in a ecological reserve area at Vale da Ribeira da Fonte da Benémola, near Querença, Loulé.
Not a single tree has been planted and the money have gone.
Matti Valo, his daughters Christel Valo and Janni Valo, and Fátima Zahara Bendita all are accused by the Public Ministry of money laundering, falsification of documents and fraud in obtaining subsidies.
A distinct lack of olive trees on the farm was spotted in 2014 when the Inspectorate-General for Agriculture informed the Regional Directorate of Agriculture that there were no trees, yet requests for payments were still being received.
The staged payments in fact were being deposited in a bank account in Finland instead of being used for the intended purpose of planting 476 olive trees.
The planting project had been made possible by pitching it as an large scale 'agricultural investment' which got the scheme around ecological hurdles.
A total investment was approved for €1,106,000 with the State agreeing to chip in €614,500.
The Public Prosecutor's Office is aware that as soon as the four suspects began receiving the grant money, they hatched a plan to hide it so that the Portuguese State could not get it back.
The scheme to launder the money used a series of companies including Light Line Unipessoal Lda., Wildsummer Unipessoal Lda. and Zenithrainbow Unipessoal, Lda.
Last year, the money was traced to Vida Vital, Empreendimentos Imobiliários SA, controlled by Matti Valo, Fátima Benbida and Christel Valo, and stabled at Commonwelth Venture Capital Group, LLC, based in Delaware, USA.
The reason for the Finns’ behaviour may have its roots in the farmland purchase as they had been assured that they were buying 274 hectares of land free of claims or disputes.
As soon as the Finns organised work on the site, several old farming families with adjacent land claimed that the land the Finns were working on was theirs.
The Finns claimed they had bought 274 hectares but seem only to have clear title to 68 hectares. The shamefully poor land registration records held by Loulé council was the basis of this conflict that has never been resolved despite tying up court time for years.
