Two lawyers – one of them connected to the offices of a convicted fraudster – have been rounded up today in a investigation that has “detected damages to the State evaluated at more than €15 million”.
Among the eight people arrested are three accountants, report Lusa news agency.
The raids took place under the auspices of Braga PJ judicial police, and centred on a scheme that has allegedly defrauded the State of IVA, IRS and Social Security payments.
Over 100 searches of homes and properties took place, in Braga and elsewhere on the mainland, as well as in the autonomous regions of Madeira and Azores, Lusa added.
At issue are the crimes of criminal association, qualified fiscal fraud, qualified fraud, tax fraud relating to Social Security payments malicious insolvency, corruption and money laundering.
Lusa explains that searches were undertaken in the offices lawyer Costa Salgado – the former director of Braga’s Social Security financial management authority.
Salgado was condemned to four years in jail in 2011 when it was “proved that he had taken possession of €187,000 destined to pay a debt to the State”.
It is unclear whether Salgado was one of the lawyers arrested today.
Lusa says that the PJ investigation behind today’s arrests had been ongoing for 18 months.
