Polícia Judiciária swooped on the headquarters of railway company Comboios de Portugal (CP) in Lisbon last week, investigating allegations that €2.3 million worth of undeclared commissions may have changed hands over a deal to sell obsolete railway carriages to Argentina.
This latest political hot potato centres on a contract signed during the government of José Sócrates.
According to Correio da Manhã newspaper, the contract involved an agreement to sell 40 carriages and seven engines made in the 70s and considered obsolete.
It was signed by Portugal’s then Secretary of State for Transport Ana Paula Vitorino and her now disgraced counterpart in Argentina, Ricardo Jaime.
Jaime is now behind bars in Argentina suspected of as many as 20 cases of corruption, fraud and abuse of power. There is even talk of him being complicit in one of the country’s worst rail disasters.
It was as a result of Argentine police investigations into Jaime that the paper trail of €2.3 million worth in commissions surfaced.
“There are indications that an Argentine politician may have received some of the money,” writes CM. “In Portugal the suspicions are equally of corruption. The PJ in Portugal wants to find out if anyone in CP benefited.”
So far, things seem to be working slowly as it has already been nearly eight years since the contract was signed, but, says CM, “there are suspicions that the deal brought advantages to the people responsible for it in Portugal”.
Thus last week’s swoop, coordinated by DCIAP serious crimes squad, netted a number of documents “referring to the deal”.
“The next step, after the analysis of the documents, is the lifting of banking secrecy for those under investigation,” writes the paper.
This way, investigators will be able to establish whether the paper trail leading out of Argentina links up with accounts here.
CM writes that this is perhaps the part of the investigation that will take most time, as there are a number of banks involved, in both countries.
Meantime, even more intriguing is the fact that the deal did not end up going ahead, as the Argentines never came up with the requisite €3.2 million payment.
The 40 carriages and seven engines have been standing idle ever since, at the railway town of Entroncamento, north of Torres Vedras.
According to CM, the original sale would have brought benefits for Portugal as it would have been cheaper to sell the railway stock to Argentina than to send it to scrap.
