Businessmen linked to a corruption scheme in Defense will have to pay a deposit of 200 thousand euros

Three businessmen involved in a corruption scheme linked to three former directors of National Defense will have to provide a guarantee of 200,000 euros to await the investigation in freedom, decided the criminal investigation judge.

According to the decision of the Central Court of Criminal Instruction (TCIC), to which the Lusa agency had access this Sunday, entrepreneurs Paulo Machado, Manuel Sousa and André Barros, in addition to the Term of Identity and Residence (TIR), were obliged to provide a guarantee in the amount of 200 thousand euros within 10 days, with a ban on leaving the country (they must hand over their passport within a maximum period of two days) and with a ban on establishing any type of contact with the other defendants and other stakeholders to which the case file alludes.

In support of the application of these coercive measures to the three businessmen, the TCIC considered, in terms of the assumptions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CPP), that there was a “danger of flight”, “danger of disturbing the course of the investigation, namely danger of acquiring and preservation of evidence” and “danger of continued criminal activity”.

According to the TCIC, businessmen Paulo Machado, Manuel Sousa and André Barros are indicted for committing a crime of active corruption, in co-authorship, and a crime of money laundering.

As for the three senior National Defense officials – Alberto Coelho (former Director General of National Defense Resources), Paulo Branco (former Director of Financial Management Services) and Francisco Marques (former Director of Defense Infrastructure and Assets) – the TCIC, in addition to the TIR already provided, applied as coercive measures the prohibition of establishing any type of contact with the remaining defendants and actors in the process and the “suspension of any functions or activities of a public nature”.

To justify these coercive measures imposed on these three National Defense leaders/public office holders, the court invoked the danger of disturbing the course of the investigation, namely the acquisition and preservation of evidence, and the danger of continuation of criminal activity.

Alberto Coelho, who led the Directorate-General for National Defense Resources for six years, is indicted for the commission of two crimes of passive corruption, in co-authorship, and of one crime of money laundering, in co-authorship.

For his part, Paulo Branco is suspected of committing four crimes of passive corruption, in co-authorship, and of three crimes of money laundering, in co-authorship. The businessman Francisco Marques is also responsible for four crimes of passive corruption, in co-authorship, and three crimes of money laundering, in co-authorship.

These senior National Defense officials were arrested last Tuesday on suspicion of corruption in the exercise of public functions and other crimes of a financial nature, within the scope of Operation “Perfect Storm” carried out by the National Unit for Combating Corruption (UNCC) of the Police. Judiciary (PJ).

At stake is an alleged corruption scheme, which involved, among other businesses, the requalification works of the Military Hospital in Lisbon, which cost the State 3.2 million euros, in an amount much higher than the 750 thousand euros initially foreseen.

In a statement, the PJ revealed at the time that a “police operation was carried out aimed at executing 59 search warrants, of which 29 were house searches and 30 were non-domestic searches”.

The purpose of this operation was “the collection of additional evidence related to suspected criminal practices in the exercise of public functions, under investigation”.

The police operation, which mobilized 200 officers, took place in Lisbon, Porto, Alter do Chão, Almada and Comporta and, according to the authorities, five arrest warrants were executed outside of flagrante delicto and 19 defendants were constituted.

According to the PJ, this investigation “aims to determine the possible practice, among others, of crimes of active and passive corruption, embezzlement, economic participation in business, abuse of power and money laundering, illicit acts related to adjudications carried out, by the Administration Body Central, to several companies, which harmed the Portuguese State in many thousands of euros”.

The investigations focus on acts committed by the defendants between 2018 and 2021.

Still according to the note then issued by the PJ, the searches for the collection of evidence of different natures, “having succeeded in collecting personal evidence and apprehending evidence of a documentary, digital nature, among other things, inherent to the procedures of public procurement in question”.

The Ministry of National Defense has already reaffirmed its “total collaboration with the authorities in everything that is requested”.