Two individuals were arrested by the Polícia Judiciária (PJ) at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport on Wednesday. The pair is “strongly suspected of engaging in criminal association, fraud, document forgery, and money laundering, with the fraudulent activities amounting to approximately 850,000 euros”.
This criminal activity is linked to a scheme known as ‘CEO Fraud’. The suspects, foreign nationals aged 28 and 30, acted “as part of a larger organization, which included two others previously detained in November 2024, as part of an ongoing investigation by the PJ’s Northern Directorate over several months”.
During the arrest, documents and computer systems used in the criminal acts were seized. The investigation concluded that “the suspects are operatives of a transnational criminal organization that, through bank accounts opened under false individual identities and the companies they created, circulated illicitly sourced funds originating from various crimes, notably computer-related or committed through IT means”.
The detainees will be brought before a judge at the Matosinhos Criminal Instruction Court for the application of appropriate coercive measures.
