Someone at the Algarve’s Regional Development Commission sat on the case of ‘the fake ruin of Estoi’ for four years - only now has the commission passed the file to the public prosecutor.
A neighbouring landowner watched with increasing incredulity as a ruin was constructed on ecological land which later was fiddled through the paperwork system to show that it has been there before 1951 and hence was suddenly worth around €200,000, far in excess of its value as scrubland.
The original complaint lodged by Carlos Gonçalves four years ago now is heading to the judicial court in Faro - it may be several more years before the case is heard.
The Jornal do Algarve reported in June 2016 that Carlos Gonçalves presented his complaint in 2012, when he realised that a ruin had been built using stones from a wall he owned, that marker posts had been shifted and that an access road had been built by pinching a section of his land.
As for the four year delay, Gonçalves said of the CCDR, "they ignored my complaint of 2012, ignored the technical opinion of the GNR’s environmental protection arm SEPNA, ignored the opinion of Engineer José Dantas, ignored Google Earth that proved the ruin was recently constructed and then busied themselves by studying rural tourism projects for the land in question in the hope that I would disappear."
Gonçalves rightly questions how this case took so long and why it only received attention when the media got involved and local MP João Vasconcelos questioned the Minister of the Environment in parliament.
Gonçalves also believes that the CCDR’s way of working, taking four years to assess the building of a fake ruin, shows "serious symptoms of neglect and incompetence."
"I thought this case would be easily resolved, given that it was easy to demonstrate the fraud committed. However, someone did not want this to happen," says Gonçalves, adding that for him the case is far from over.
The awkward questions facing the CCDR, until recently under the leadership of David Santos, include - who was in charge of investigating this complaint, what action does the CCDR file show has been taken, who wanted to see the ruin upgraded into a tourism project and who at the CCDR stood to benefit if and when the land was sold on at a vastly inflated price?
For the original report, see: http://www.algarvedailynews.com/news/9346-faro-fake-ruin-in-ecological-zone-under-investigation
