Two construction inspectors from the Lisbon Chamber were caught in wiretapping asking for money from the owners of illegal buildings. The owners of the houses, Carlos Ferreira and Paulo Correia, asked for financial “compensation”, because there would be other colleagues who intended to embargo the works and it was necessary to have a way of “silence them in any way” and “insure them, to take them to to have lunch”. In order not to embargo the works, the two inspectors charged between 500 and 1800 euros. Ferreira and Correia were accused by the Public Ministry (MP), last November, of passive corruption.
The two defendants were arrested on 23 May last: on that day, the Judiciary Police seized more than 42 thousand euros at Ferreira’s house in a plastic box placed inside the wardrobe; at Correia’s house, 17,000 euros were seized from a hole in a wall in the couple’s bedroom and 600 euros from a safe. Since that time, the two defendants have been in custody.
Chamber creates anti-corruption department
The Lisbon Chamber created the Department of Transparency and Corruption Prevention this year. It aims, among other functions, to anticipate and act against cases such as those that happened to the two works inspectors. A reporting channel and a code of ethics and conduct were created.
12 crimes of corruption
Carlos Ferreira was accused of five crimes of passive corruption. In co-authorship, Ferreira and Paulo Correia were accused of seven crimes of passive corruption.
Certodão gives rise to a new process
The MP had a certificate extracted from this process, to open a new inquiry for active corruption against the owners of the five properties that paid bribes to the two construction inspectors of the Lisbon Chamber.
Tags: Eavesdropping hunt corrupt construction inspectors Lisbon Chamber Politics
