Former health minister Arlindo de Carvalho is back in the news this week for allegedly trying to pay his way out of a six-year jail term for fraud in the long-running BPN corruption saga.
The price tag is steep: €22 million, shared between Carvalho and former business partner José Neto.
As reports explain, the only defendant in the scandal that cost the country well over €5 billion to actually see the inside of a jail cell has been former PSD MP Duarte Lima – and he only went to jail after every single avenue of appeal had lapsed.
Arlindo de Carvalho’s ‘dodge’ seems to have involved stumping up with the proceeds of sales effected following dubious ‘credits’ extended by BPN.
Almost €10 million was paid out in cash, the rest in property.
According to the prosecution case against them, Carvalho and Neto received €80 million from BPN in ‘opaque operations’ instigated to circumnavigate supervision by the Bank of Portugal.
BPN finally came a cropper in 2008 and was nationalised before being sold three years later to Angola’s Banco BIC which after changing its name to EuroBic came a cropper as a result of the Luanda Leaks scandal, involving major shareholder Isabel dos Santos.
Spanish banking group Abanca is on course to take over EuroBic but nothing yet has been officially confirmed (click here).
