The Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) has charged 20 individuals suspected of being part of a network that filed over 300 mortgage loan applications using falsified documents, acquiring at least 284 properties in the Algarve, it was revealed today.
In a statement, the MP indicated that 118 properties were seized, mainly in the Algarve, and that the defendants, of various nationalities, engaged over nearly a decade in “a transnational criminal organization responsible for a sophisticated scheme for obtaining” bank financing.
“The alleged offenses involve more than three hundred housing credit applications, amounting to over forty-one million and eight hundred thousand euros, obtained from several national banks, all secured with forged documentation,” the statement reads.
The network is alleged to have operated between December 2015 and at least June 25, 2024, with its members suspected of crimes such as criminal association, aggravated fraud, money laundering, forgery of documents, and false declarations.
The ‘modus operandi’ involved the “creation and large-scale manipulation of pay slips, bank statements, annual income declarations, and employer statements, all apparently originating from the United Kingdom,” the note adds, as published on the Évora Regional District Attorney’s Office website.
Thus, the group managed to simulate, to Portuguese banks, “falsely inflated financial and professional situations, misleading them into granting loans unconditionally, mainly to foreign citizens with no known income or assets, undermining the normal functioning of the banking system.”
In this context, the indictment identified “various situations of definitive non-compliance with credit payment, with the expectation that the number may increase,” with at least 284 properties acquired in the Algarve.
The leaders of the organization profited not only from the difference between the purchase price and the fraudulently obtained loan but also from “the values of successive credits obtained in the name of people used for this purpose through simulated sales.”
According to the MP, the leaders also earned “illegal profits from the exploitation of the properties acquired in this manner, where these figureheads were also used to conceal them.”
In this case, the Public Prosecutor’s Office advocated the confiscation to the State of various criminally obtained assets, namely, 26.4 million euros “to be paid jointly by the organization’s leaders, corresponding to the gains achieved with the fraudulent transactions.”
Additionally, 118 properties, primarily in the Algarve, valued at at least 21.5 million euros, 22 cars, and three vessels, including a yacht valued at 320,000 euros, bank balances, and cash were seized.
One suspect is in pre-trial detention, while two others are under house arrest with electronic monitoring.
The time currently runs for the potential opening of instructions which, if not requested, “will result in the case being sent to trial,” clarifies the MP.
The investigation was led by the Évora Regional Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DIAP) since January 2021, with assistance from the Southern Directorate of the Judicial Police and the Technical Advisory Unit of the Attorney General’s Office.
