The main defendant in the case of fraud against construction entrepreneurs admitted this Friday, at the beginning of the trial in the court of Vila Real, his responsibility for all the crimes of qualified fraud and money laundering with which he is accused.
The case, which began in 2021, involves 13 defendants ranging in age from 24 to 60 years old.
In the morning, a group of judges from the Vila Real court identified only the accused, and in the afternoon, the leader of the group, a 35-year-old man whom the Prosecutor’s Office (MP) accuses of 30 crimes. considered fraud, qualified 15 crimes of money laundering and 19 crimes using an identity document.
The defendant, who is in pre-trial detention, admitted to the facts stated in the indictment and said he was “ashamed of all the evil” he had committed, claiming that he was going through a bad period in his life at the time and that he was involved in fraud to support gambling addiction.
He also mentioned that he has a regular job and does not want the scam scheme to become his way of life and apologized to those who did wrong.
According to the indictment, together with his 30-year-old brother-in-law, from at least mid-2021 until his arrest in November of that year by the GNR, the suspect allegedly defrauded several construction contractors for a total of €50,000, who offered an offer manpower for construction projects, which never materialized.
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 a number of European countries.
According to the MP, the main person involved in the case is also suspected of stealing 16,800 euros from a former expat in Luxembourg by convincing him that he could collect social security funds in that country through two transactions in which he was involved and that he could also receive 1600 euros for a pension for his wife.
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.
Some are accused by the deputy of collaborating with the defendants in the fraud, while others provided their bank accounts to receive payments and then transferred the amounts transferred by the contractors to the defendants.
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).
The 13 accused agreed to testify before the panel of judges at the Vila Real court.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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