Trial of 13 defendants in contractor fraud scheme postponed

The start of the trial of 13 defendants involved in a sophisticated fraud scheme against construction businessmen and a former expat, scheduled for this morning in the Vila Real court, has been postponed to Friday.

A judicial source told Lusa that the trial of the accused, aged between 24 and 60, was postponed due to the illness of one of the panel of judges at the Vila Real court.

The main accused in the case is awaiting trial in a pre-trial detention center and is accused by the prosecutor’s office (MP) of 30 crimes of qualified fraud, 15 crimes of money laundering and 19 crimes of using an identity document.

The remaining 12 members of the network are also suspected in varying numbers of crimes such as advanced fraud, money laundering and use of identity documents.

According to the deputy’s indictment, together with his 30-year-old son-in-law, from at least mid-2021 until his arrest in November of that year by the GNR, the suspect allegedly deceived several construction contractors into offering to provide labor for the work, but this was never achieved.

To act, it was necessary to look through advertisements on various Internet platforms through which businessmen were looking for workers for work that would be carried out in Portugal and in several European countries.

The alleged leader of the network is also suspected of defrauding a former expat in Luxembourg of 16,800 euros by convincing him that he could repay that country’s social security funds through two operations he underwent, the MP said. …and that he will also be able to receive a pension of 1600 euros for his wife.

The arrests took place in November 2021 following an investigation carried out by the PND’s Vila Real Territorial Command through the Criminal Investigation Center (NIC).