The military personnel from the National Republican Guard (GNR) and officers of the Public Security Police (PSP) detained on suspicion of exploiting immigrants in Alentejo, under the operation “Safra Justa,” were released on Saturday.
The individuals were released under the condition of Identity and Residence Terms, as the phone taps had not been transcribed and, according to current legislation, cannot be used to justify coercive measures.
About 89 of the 231 articles presenting evidence against the defendants were based “exclusively or partially” on untranscribed wiretaps.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office argued that it is “not humanly possible” to transcribe wiretaps in a timely fashion in “more complex” cases, but the judge rejected this explanation.
Among the 17 individuals arrested last Tuesday by the Judicial Police (PJ), 10, nine of whom were GNR military personnel, were released on Thursday evening by the court, and the remaining seven heard the coercive measures today.
According to the Lisbon County Court, three civilians were placed in preventive detention, while the GNR military, the PSP officer, and two civilians heard today were placed under identity and residence terms.
The criminal organization dismantled in the “Safra Justa” operation on Tuesday controlled around 500 foreign workers in Alentejo, but not all are considered victims of trafficking, according to police sources.
On that day, the PJ announced that the operation allowed for the dismantling of a criminal organization aiding illegal immigration that controlled hundreds of foreign workers, most of whom were in an irregular situation in Portugal.
The facts investigated, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) and the PJ, are likely to include crimes of aiding illegal immigration, human trafficking, active and passive corruption, abuse of power, forgery, tax fraud, and money laundering.
The 10 GNR military personnel detained, at the time of the alleged crimes, belonged to the Territorial Command of Beja of the GNR, while the PSP officer from the Beja District Command was on sick leave since September 2024, it was revealed on Tuesday.
Regarding the six civilians, the police source specified to Lusa on Wednesday that four are Portuguese and two are foreign, “all members of the criminal organization.”
“The two foreigners are from India and recruited victims from the same origin and also ended up coercing and threatening them,” it was stated.
Among the Portuguese, it continued, is “the leader” of the network, who was “arrested in public in Beja, at 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday,” while the rest were “his right-hand men.”
Overall, about 50 search warrants and 17 arrest warrants were executed, not only in Beja, but also in Portalegre, Figueira da Foz, and Porto.
The MP argued that the suspects took advantage “of the fragile (documentary, social, and economic) situation of citizens from third countries, most of whom were undocumented, to extract substantial economic benefits.”
The immigrants “were willing to work without a formalized contract” and received “lower wages than those practiced in the market for the performed tasks,” for example in agriculture.
“The suspects did not deliver the promised amounts to them, having deducted arbitrarily imposed amounts for expenses related to accommodation, transport, water, electricity, and documentation,” it highlighted.
The security force members suspected of controlling and monitoring the foreign workers “in exchange for economic compensation” also “threatened those citizens, suggesting that reporting to the authorities was not a viable alternative to react to the abuses” they were subjected to.
[Updated at 19:04]
