Inês Pereira’s entire family face same conviction
Inês Pereira, the well-known hairdresser of ‘various public figures’, was condemned to seven years jail yesterday for fiscal fraud and money laundering.
At issue was a scheme “maintained in practice between May 18, 2011 and September 2018, which Porto’s Court of São João Novo, ruled damaged the State of more than a million euros in IVA and IRC”, writes Correio da Manhã tabloid.
“The same penalty was applied to the hairdresser’s ex-husband Fernando Pereira, as well as the couple’s two children, Inês Catarina and Ricardo Pereira – the latter exercising functions as a banker for the European Central Bank.
“All tried to persuade the court that they were ingénus”, said Judge Pedro Brito, delivering the court’s verdict. “For you this was a sting. These are the words from your phone taps (…) These are shocking facts. This was methodically organised. There is a panoply of evidence (…) This scheme was managed by all of you. There are phone taps of Ricardo talking to his father, with his sister, with his mother. You thought the court was stupid, but it isn’t.
“Just on a normal Friday” one of the business’ salons took more than €5000 – “all in quantities that entered without fiscal numbers, and which went straight into your sphere.
“You never assumed the costs of this crime”, the judge went on. “Yes, this was a scam – and you have never shown any remorse”.
Jail terms are ‘effective’ and arrest warrants will be drawn up as soon as the decision “goes through the official channels” (transitar em julgado) as long as there is no appeal to a higher court.
The four defendants, who presented assets valued at around €1 million, have been further condemned to paying the State the global value of the fraud, says CM.
“The Public Prosecutor’s Office indicated that €1.8 million was looted, but it was proved that the ‘scam’ amounted to a little more than €1 million”, the paper continues.
As part of the case, four companies in the Inês Pereira group were sentenced to fines of between €7,000 and €24,000 and dissolution, adds Expresso.
Also condemned, but to suspended jail terms, were a lawyer – who helped the family construct an association and use it as a vehicle for money laundering – and a ‘right hand’ of the hairdresser.
The lawyer received a three year suspended sentence, the ‘right hand’ two-years.
Judge Brito also requested that the family and the lawyer being investigated for forging a signature.
Other reports refer to Inês Pereira as having opened her first salon in Porto in 1982. This then went on to have sister salons in Foz, Boavista, Rua da Firmeza, Arrábida Shopping, Norte Shopping, Parque Nascente and El Corte Inglês, as well as in Guimarães.
Jornal de Notícias describes 14 salons in all, and says that only last year, Inês Pereira’s declared earnings centred on a base salary of €805 (the national minimum wage).
JN also refers to the case having proved that receptionists received instructions to tell clients that Multibanco terminals were not working, in order to incentivise cash payments “and increase the cases in which clients did not ask for receipts”.
None of the papers reporting on this trial have indicated whether the Pereira family is considering an appeal.
Source material; Correio da Manhã/ Jornal de Notícias/ Expresso
