The Tax Administration (AT) is carrying out new searches this Thursday at the house of Altice co-founder Armando Pereira in Guiljofrey, Braga district, the defense of the main accused in the “Operation Picoas” case told Lusa.
“The searches are confirmed, the purpose of which is to check the presence of new documents in the house of Armando Pereira and which, in fact, are a repetition of what happened in July,” explained lawyer Pedro Marinho Falcao, who represents the co-founder of Altice with Magalhães and Silva added: “Cars were already confiscated in July, and the goal now is to determine whether there are documents obtained by Armando Pereira since July that are of interest to the investigation.”
The searches carried out SICcarried out by AT (via PSP) and began around 10 a.m. at the residence of Guilhofrey, where Armando Pereira is still under house arrest until he makes a bank deposit of 10 million euros in order to be released.
The Altice co-founder will even post bail following an enforcement review by the Central Criminal Investigation Court, which was announced on Wednesday, the lawyer said.
The investigation also took place at the home of co-defendant Hernani Vaz Antunes, who will remain under house arrest, while authorities seized at least 10 cars from his right-hand man, Armando Pereira, which had already been confiscated in July.
In a conversation with Lusa, lawyer Ruy Patricio, representing Hernan Vaz Antunes, refused to speak in today’s investigation and criticized the violation of judicial secrecy in the investigation of this case.
“I’m not talking about proceedings in conditions of judicial secrecy, especially about this, where the secrecy has already been violated repeatedly both in front of everyone, and with the inertia of those who have responsibilities and powers in this case,” he said. advocate.
This process includes “bias in the Altice group’s contracting decisions, as well as harmful practices by the group’s own companies and competitors,” which points to private corruption in active and passive forms, as well as crimes related to tax fraud and money laundering .
Investigators suspect that more than 100 million euros may have been stolen from the state at a financial level.
The investigation also points to the existence of evidence of “abuse of the reduced taxation applied to IRC in the Madeira Free Zone” through the fictitious tax domicile of people and companies. The MP also understands that offshore companies were also used, which indicates crimes of money laundering and document forgery.
On July 13, the deputy launched an operation that involved approximately 90 house searches, resulting in the arrests of Armando Pereira, Hernan Vaz Antunes, Jessica Antunes (the daughter of the right-hand woman of the Altice co-founder) and Alvaro Loureiro, a business administrator (these two latter defendants were released in July on bail).
Documents and items “such as luxury cars and exclusive models with an estimated value of approximately 20 million euros” were also seized.