The Attorney General's Office has confirmed that the National Director of the Aliens and Borders Service (SEF) Manuel Jarmela Palos, has been arrested on corruption charges related to the 'golden visa' scheme. His new nick-name is 'Mr 10%' which, according to Correio da Manhã, was the commission level for certain visa applications that he authorised or fast-tracked.
Sending shockwaves through Portugal's murky and corrupt corridors of power, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice, Maria Antónia Anes, suffered the indignity of being arrested in the Ministry of Justice building and taken away by police for questioning.
In addition to these two high profile arrests, the President of the Institute of Registrars and Notaries, António Figueiredo also was arrested and charged.
Also raided by police was the office of Albertina Gonçalves, the Secretary General of the Ministry of the Environment, Spatial Planning and Energy (MAOTE) as part of the investigation. She later resigned.
The Attorney General's Office stated that “in the context of research at the Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DCIAP), several enquiries are underway which today involved over 70 searches in various parts of the country by over 150 police officers, arrest warrants have been issued. This investigation is looking at the allocation of 'golden visas,' among other matters.
The headquarters of the SEF in Porto Salvo, Oeiras, was the target of the initial searches by police officers, but the Attorney General's Office stated that searches are continuing in several parts of the country and more arrestes are expected.
At issue are "suspected corruption offenses, influence peddling, embezzlement and money laundering," according to a no-holds-barred statement from the Attorney General's Office.
Golden visas may be assigned to non EU nationals who spend over €500,000 on a property in Portugal or invest in a business using certain criteria. They have to pass the scrutiny of the SEF which checks for criminal records, drugs convictions, indications of money laundering, and identity fraud among other criteria.
The Association for Industrial Civil Construction and Public Works (AICCOPN) indicated that a further €108 million was spent under the 'golden visa' programme in October 2014 and that €972 million has been spent since the controversial scheme was launched in October 2012 by Paulo Portas.
The scheme has drawn criticism as it gives rich foreigners tax free status for five years, is against the purported tax equality mantra trotted out by the government every time the VAT issue is raised by the country's restaurateurs, and that it served to enrich top end estate agents rather than the Treasury so was little help to ordinary taxpayers who are shouldering the tax burden whiler watching Chinese millionaires drift around Europe while paying zero tax on their worldwide income.
The 'golden visa' fraud investigations that started in June this year focusing on two areas; officials involved in handing out the visas, and complicit real estate agencies in the top-end areas in Lisbon, Cascais and the Algarve.
The estate agents should be in the next raft of arrests, both in the Algarve and in Lisbon and Cascais.
Comments
Now about the Golden Visa and everything else that is not in the picture, the abouve story doesn't tell.
This bust only happened, because Macedo, ministre of internal affairs was caught in a call about this by the PJ. And in order to save his ass and that of the whole governement, they rounded up a couple of towers and horses.
Fred should have made clear - he meant that the little people northerners have next to no chance to set up succesfully in Portugal. A struggle that the little Chinese do not have in setting up their stores.
Sure Lidl and Aldi (?) are here in Portugal - but these are major multinationals. Almost every site they set up at in Portugal involved them building or contributing to access roads. Junctions. Drainage etc etc
Apart from also being Intermarche type franchises; no doubt often renting the land or paying crazy money for development land - so paying to a Portuguese landowner and greasing palms with gusto ... which brings us back neatly to the topic.
Someone important was not getting bunged enough or at all ... so cried foul. No little person would have stirred this pot ... far too risky.
As in Salazar's time ... if it doesn't concern you, it doesn't concern you. No change there !
Please read..... http://fullforcespeaker.blogspot.pt
This wave of arrests may give someone a warm feeling, but there are plenty of instances of a great initial fuss, and lots of newsprint for years, but nothing ever happens. Such as Portas and the submarines. Casa Pia. Madeleine. The list could go on and on.
As previous posters have pointed out - the Portuguese police and security forces do not have free access to classified Interpol / Europol criminal intelligence. Each Golden Visa supposedly being 'clean'.
For the obvious reason - the certainty that this intel. would be 'sold on' by the Portuguese. What criminal would not want to check their police record? To know that ...yes' the rozzers want me for that bank job I did a few years back, but have no idea of my drug dealing'.
So any checking of the suitability of these Golden Visa's applicants would be done by Interpol / Europol itself using whatever they already had and what the Chinese had passed over.
Interpol then tracking the movements and dealings of these non-EU applicants around Portugal. No doubt then turning up the very material that forms this investigation and presented to the highest level Portuguese authorities.
With the order - Get a grip on these Visa applicant chaps or STOP this nonsense entirely.
this is excellent news but has only happened because noses at Municipal level have been put out of joint.
As with the Submarines .... Bungs never reached enough hands or in the right quantities at 'local' level. From there - for the 'authorities' - it would have been simple enough to identify over-valued property. And 'dodgy' Business development permits.
What has already been spotted on these pages is the comment that Portugal struggles intensely with its painful historic dealings with 'old Europe' - but is oddly at home with the Chinese, due to Macao .
But that there is a rearguard action from some of the 'north facing' elite to limit the number and influence of Chinese in Portugal.
After all - they are economically active in every concelho with great ease. Often with half a dozen cheap shops.
Yet northern europeans often cannot become economically active in Portugal ! Ever.
Can you identify even one ?