12 suspects belonging to a group that scammed rentals in Greater Porto arrived at the Porto Criminal Investigation Court early Thursday morning. They were taken in two PSP vans to begin their first forensic interrogation.
The trial is expected to take a long time given the large number of defendants who may or may not choose to testify.
The suspects – nine women and three men aged between 21 and 53 – defrauded hundreds of people, most of them tourists from Latin America and Africa. There are also records of victims who came to Portugal to study or work.
The scheme brought the group about 250 thousand euros. They rented a local property for 48 hours and then rented it out, posing as the real owners. In one of the cases, the victims were a married couple with three minor children. Having no shelter or money, they spent the night on the street and in the rain.