Yesterday’s PJ ‘coup’ over the dismantling of an ‘international money-laundering network’ steered clear of pointing the finger too brazenly. Today, the focus of this investigation has become much more clear: it targeted ‘Chinatown’ – the area around Vila do Conde with the largest Chinese population in Portugal.
There have already been a number of ‘incidents’ involving Chinese people in Vila do Conde. There has even been the controversy surrounding the operation of ‘illegal Chinese police stations’ (working on controlling dissidents / Chinese wanted ‘back home’).
Now, there is this latest investigation into an alleged ‘ring’ that appears to have laundered more than €200 million of ‘illicit origin’ simply in the last two years.
The PJ ‘swooped’ on the ring on Wednesday, rounding-up seven key suspects and citing dozens more. Among those arrested was the suspected ‘ringleader’: a ‘Chinese businessman’, based in the north, the owner of a wholesale warehouse and restaurant in Porto’.
Jornal de Notícias reports that this businessman allegedly “used shell companies and ‘front men/women’ to move huge sums of money, removing them from the legal economic circuit. The organisation also laundered money for other Chinese businessmen”.
From 2023, the ‘ringleader businessman’ is understood to have “intensified the recruitment of people in a situation of economic vulnerability to whom he gave roles as fictitious managing partners of tens of companies.
“The process was simple: these so-called ‘front men/ women’ were taken to registry offices and citizen service centres to set up companies, and then to banks, where accounts were opened and cards and access codes were issued.
“Afterwards, the group had total control of these accounts while the so-called ‘managing partners’ received small amounts of money and/ or benefits – like stays in luxury hotels – for their collaboration.
“Teams (working for the network) collected envelopes containing banknotes delivered by business clients on a daily basis and distributed the money to more than 400 bank accounts.
“In just one of them, belonging to a woman from the Bairro de Ramalde (a woman with no employment history and no earnings that she ever declared) €1.4 million in cash was deposited.
“After several transfer operations, passing through Germany and Denmark, the money was eventually sent to China”.
The sheer scale of this operation will have been vast – and it is still unclear whether investigators even understand where the money originated (and/ or how).
Right now, the seven arrested on Wednesday are still ‘in preventive custody’ – presumably answering questions in order for a judge to determine whether or not they should be given bail – or perhaps waiting for the courts to reconvene once the general strike is over.
Source: Jornal de Notícias/ ZAP
