This afternoon, aggrieved BES customers who have lost their money in Ricardo Salgado's commercial paper scam tried to push over the crowd control barriers set up by the police in front of PM Pedro Passos Coelho’s official residence.
BES protestors first went to Novo Banco’s office in Avenida da Liberdade, the the Socialsist Party headquarters in Rato and then to the prime minister’s official residence in São Bento.
Around 200 protesters shouted slogans blaming the governor of the Bank of Portugal, Carlos Costa, the Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, and the president of Novo Banco, Eduardo Stock da Cunha for the loss of their savings which they had been assured were in ‘safe’ investments, when in fact they had been channeled into Grupo Espírito Santo companies to prop up their share prices.
Those feeling ripped off by Ricardo Salgado’s clever plan to dupe his own customers, around 2,500 account holders have lost an estimated €527 million, pulled over some of the crowd control barriers and were beaten off by the police wielding batons, the current weapon of choice when ‘controlling’ Portugal’s citizens.
Two of the protestors collapsed and received medical assistance.
Those responsible for the plight of these investors seem to wish these account holders would just go away and die.
The Bank of Portugal, BES, Ricardo Salgado, Novo Banco, the stock market regulator CMVM and the Minister of Finance have offered zero support to these customers - it is all someone else’s problem.
