Prosecutors have requested a trial of an employee of the Institute of Financial Management and Justice Apparatus detained last December, accused of abuse of authority and advanced computer fraud, among other crimes, prosecutors said Thursday.
According to a note published on the website of the General Prosecutor’s Office on the Internet, the Prosecutor’s Office (MP) at the Directorate General of Investigation and Criminal Punishment (DCIAP) of Lisbon accused the employee of crimes related to abuse of authority, theft, guarantee of card abuse, aggravating circumstances of the device or payment data, qualified computer fraud, document forgery, computer forgery and aggravated unlawful access, making a profit of more than 36 thousand euros.
According to the indictment, between November 2021 and June 2023, the defendant, who worked as a computer technician at the Institute of Financial Management and Forensic Equipment (IGFEJ), used the credentials of two employees of the Institute of Registers and Notaries (IRN), to which he had access by virtue of its functions, to access the internal IT system of the citizen’s card life cycle and create digital mobile keys for nine citizens.
Still based on the indictment, “the defendant, without the knowledge of these citizens, used digital mobile keys for electronic authentication in various public and private organizations, opened bank accounts and took out financial loans, always in the name of the victims, to his detriment and financial institutions, receiving stock profit of 36,614.68 euros.”
“In addition, despite the efforts made in this direction, the defendant, for reasons beyond his control, was unable to obtain additional benefits in the amount of at least 108,144.03 euros,” says the deputy, explaining that the process began with a complaint filed by the Agency for Administrative Modernization (AMA), IRN and IGFEJ.
The accused was arrested on December 19, 2021 and has since been in preventive detention; the investigation is being conducted by the DVIAP with the assistance of the judicial police.