Operation Maestro centres on suspicions of €40 million fraud of EU funding
Portugal’s PJ judicial police have swooped today on around 80 homes and businesses in a mega-operation targeting suspected fraud in the obtaining of up to €40 million in EU funds.
According to reports, suspects cited in this operation so far include businessman and CMTV football commentator Manuel Serrão, TVI/CNN journalist Júlio Magalhães and president of the COMPETE 2030 board of directors Nuno Mangas.
Searches this morning have been taking place within the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto, as well as in the northern regions of Aveiro and Guarda.
Around 300 PJ inspectors and magistrates/ public prosecutors are said to be involved.
At issue are suspicions of fraud in obtaining principally FEDER funding (for regional development) – which “will have damaged the State and the European Union in a value that could reach €50 million”, writes Diário de Notícias.
Other news sources suggest some of the alleged fraud could have targeted PRR funding (the Plan for Recovery and Resilience).
According to a statement sent to newsrooms by the PJ, potential crimes include qualified fiscal fraud, money laundering and abuse of power which caused damage to the financial interests of the European Union and the Portuguese State.
As to how the alleged fraud will have operated, the PJ statement refers to “organised fraudulent schemes that benefited a group of individual and collective people”. The modus operandi being “based on the creation of complex corporate structures, aimed at setting up contractual justifications for the provision of services and the supply of goods in order to fraudulently attract EU funds in the context of at least 14 operations, which have been carried out since 2015, most of which were approved under the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI)”.
“Through the 14 projects co-financed by FEDER – carried out between 2015 and 2023 – the suspects have so far managed to obtain the payment of incentives worth a total of at least €38,938,631.46,” says the statement.
According to TVI, the authorities suspect that Manuel Serrão, who is in charge of the Associação Seletiva Moda (which has the power to approve, within EU frameworks, projects by companies funded by the European Union with a view to national and international promotion of the textile and clothing industry), was an accomplice and participated in the creation of companies, some of which had fictitious activities, to falsify and inflate expenses of millions of euros for holding events, financed, in many cases, by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER).
Selectiva Moda is made up of the Textile and Clothing Association of Portugal and the National Association of the Wool Industry. Over the last three decades, it has taken part in various international fashion fairs and promoted multiple initiatives, such as a film festival and a photography competition, writes Público.
“Selectiva Moda also organises the main Portuguese textile show, Modtíssimo. Both this and other events organised by the association are under scrutiny by the authorities”, says the paper.
This latest investigation into potentially labyrinthine corruption grew from “strong suspicions of the involvement of officials from public bodies, in violation of their functional duties and reserve, in the streamlining and conformation of procedures related to applications, payment requests and the management of co-financed projects”, the PJ release continues.
Carried out by the PJ’s National Anti-Corruption Unit, Maestro is headed by DCIAP (Central Department for Investigation and Criminal Action), which saw at least 20 prosecutors in the searches, and “will continue with the analysis of the evidence now collected (…) with the aim of fully ascertaining the truth and bringing (the investigation) to a swift conclusion”.
Today’s searches targeted 31 homes and 47 businesses/ other premises. There were no arrest warrants, and so far no one has been detained. ND
Source material: Lusa/ SIC Notícias/ Diário de Notícias/ Público
