The director general of the Aliens and Borders Service, the president of the Institute of Registries and Notaries and the former Secretary-General of the Ministry of Justice, three of the 11 detainees under investigation in 'Operation Labyrinth' investigating allegations of favoritism and corruption in the Golden Visa programme, are being held in prison.
The order from the Central Criminal Court came at the end of four days of interrogations conducted by the tireless judge, Carlos Alexandre.
Manuel Jarmela Palos, until recently the director of the Aliens and Borders Service, is on remand but may be allowed home on house arrest with an electronic bracelet and not allowed any contact with former colleagues, the police or the judiciary.
Remand followed by possible house arrest was ordered for the former Secretary-general of the Ministry of Justice, Maria Antónia Anes.
António Figueiredo, until recently the president of the Institute of Registries and Notaries, and Chinese businessman Zhu Xiaodong are to be held in prison on remand with no alternatives offered.
Jaime Gomes, managing partner of the firm and JMF Projects and Business is also in custody but later can be released into home arrest with an electronic bracelet.
Four other employees of the Institute of Registries and Notaries, Paulo Eliseu, Paulo Vieira, José Manuel Gonçalves e Abílio Silva have been suspended from duty, not allowed to travel abroad, are under house arrest with electronic bracelets and are not allowed contact with former colleagues or other agencies involved.
Carlos Alexandre has made an excellent start and seems clear who is likely to try and influence others to get stories straight in an operation that saw upwards of 200 police officers make the 11 arrests last Thursday.
Unafraid of ordering remand for some high level suspects he is to be congratulated for starting as he means to finish.
Comments
Not just a wedge but can also be seen as a 'fixer, arranger'.
Someone that makes things happen. But can be assumed to stay in the background.
Interesting mix up as the original - if asterixed correctly would have done just as well !
We must keep using cunha's as it gets it known and can be thrown into any conversation about Portuguese corruption - as our Resurrected Roman tells us. Being worse now than in his time.
"As in ... yes, I agree with what you say. But what about the cunha's ?"
or
"Has anybody seen the cunha's ?"
Its also in Portuguese family names .... which, as everything is back to front in Portugal and dishonest behaviour is saluted - might imply someone so dodgy his nickname stuck with him.
Just as we have family names after old professions : Wellman, Wainwright, Barrowman, Carter, Cartwright etc so they will have references to scams, cheating, lying - basic dishonesty.
Now go look for them !
It was a Portuguese word kindly submitted by Diedre....I assumed a translation of c*** so repleced the letters with *****
Ed
There's only 5 letters in c***s !
We must remind ourselves that this is not Portugal 40 yeas ago. The cheating, lying, defrauding the state and other individuals, endless profiting from public duties and using power and influence to distort procedures- the things that the Revolution was to change.
This is today and Golden Vistas was only set up 2 years ago. Demonstrating to the world that Portugal still has absolutely no interest in 'progressing - to develop'
And still intends to horse around on the fringes ... its anti-EU history like a millstone round its - and the rest of the EU's - neck.
Undoubtedly the Labyrinth will have multiple layers and even without the top players, lower levels will be destroying files and 'getting their stories straight'. They are first and foremost Portuguese.
As often commented here - there should be applied a generalised test to prove crime in all these elite Portuguese cases ...
'Have you behaved like a dickhead ? If you haven't do you know anyone who has?'
That would keep the net wide and catch the c****'s.