Gesticopter Operations is one of businesses flagged in investigations into suspicions of corruption
Gesticopter Operations Unipessoal – a company linked to the brother-in-law of minister for the presidency António Leitão Amaro – has just won another whopping state contract to supply firefighting helicopters, even though it is under investigation over suspicions of corruption.
Operation Control Tower burst onto the scene late last month, focusing on “suspicions that rules of public procurement rules have been skirted around over the last few years in the awarding of aerial equipment to private companies to fight rural fires”.
According to official statements, the alleged scheme is believed to have ‘damaged the state by around €100 million’ – but as Ricardo Leitão Machado, the brother-in-law of António Leitão Amaro, has stressed, he personally was not targeted in the 28 search and seizure warrants carried out in the districts of Lisbon, Beja, Faro, Castelo Branco, Porto and Bragança – neither has he been cited as an official suspect.
Gesticopter is just one of a number of companies under investigation. It won its latest €11.9 million contract with the Air Force on the day before the new PSD/CDS-PP government took office, writes Correio da Manhã.
The contract “was signed practically a month after the company with links to Ricardo Leitão Machado celebrated a contract (worth €16.4 million) with the Air Force to supply three helicopters.
“In other words, in the space of a month, Gesticopter celebrated two contracts with the state to supply ‘helis’, for a total value of €28.3 million.
“In both contracts for the acquisition of aircraft for DECIR (the country’s summer wildfire combat unit), Gesticopter was the only business submitting a tender”, adds the paper.
Reacting to CM’s report, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers has issued a statement reiterating that Leitão Amaro asked to be excused from any decisions in this regard some time ago.
“Although he is not involved in any of these contracting processes, out of an abundance of caution and to guarantee impartiality, the Minister for the Presidency (Leitão Amaro) informed the Prime Minister and the ministers responsible for the contracting and awarding administrative bodies in good time of his family relationship with the owner of a company, who had informed him of the company’s intention to compete in these international public tenders.
“Furthermore, the Minister communicated his refusal to intervene in any possible procedure or act relating to those contracting procedures, as well as to receive any information about that process, or to participate in or even listen to any discussion on the same matter, in the Council of Ministers and in any other medium or context,” says the note, which specifies that this request for excusal was communicated “in December 2024, immediately after the Minister of the Presidency was informed by his relative of the intention of the respective company to submit itself to the public tenders”.
The statement adds that “the Minister of the Presidency publicly disclosed the excusal and its broad scope’, ‘on his own initiative”, on April 23 this year, “despite the fact that neither the law nor the government’s code of conduct stipulate that excuses must be publicised, nor has there been any question or journalistic piece about it”.
The statement emphasises that “the Minister of the Presidency has no corporate or other interest, nor any direct or indirect patrimonial, economic or financial right or interest, in this or any other company competing or contracted to supply aerial equipment” and that “this lack of patrimonial rights and/ or interests is reflected in the register of interests declared by the Minister to the Transparency Authority.
“The Minister for the Presidency has strictly respected this excuse and has had no involvement whatsoever in the tendering procedures for selecting and contracting suppliers of aerial firefighting equipment. The same abstention from participation and information applied to his family relationship. As a result, the Minister of the Presidency only learnt of the outcome of the tender and the contracting process from media reports, confirmed by the Base portal,” the statement reads, adding: “‘We firmly repudiate the attempt to associate the minister with a public decision prepared and taken without any participation or intervention on his part, when, on the contrary, all the measures to prevent conflicts of interest and preserve integrity that Portuguese law provides for were taken, and others even beyond what is required by law, always to guarantee the impartiality of the public decision and the minister’s total distance from it”.
Operation Control Tower
Authorities suspect that air transport companies acted as a cartel – imposing special requirements and inflating values demanded – in order to force the state to give in and make direct contracts, wrote Expresso when this investigation broke.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, 12 defendants (seven people and five companies) have been cited as official suspects following the searches that took place on May 29.
Press releases from the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DCIAP), which led the investigation, and PJ judicial police, which assisted, stress that “the facts in question are likely to include the offences of active and passive corruption, qualified fraud, abuse of power, influence peddling, criminal association and qualified tax fraud, through a complex relationship, established at least since 2022, between several commercial companies, based in Portugal, which have been controlling participation in public tenders in the fight against rural fires in Portugal, worth around €100 million.” ND
