Rúben Oliveira – known as Xuxas – was sentenced to 20 years in prison by jury, in a process in which accusations of drug trafficking, criminal association and money laundering are at stake.
leader of the largest national cartel, was sentenced to 20 years in prisonthis Friday, in the process of drug trafficking.
The decision was read by the judge president of the collective, Filipa Araújo, at the Lisbon Central Criminal Court, at the Justice Campus, in a room with a strong police presence.
According to , the judge also understood that Rúben Oliveira will have to pay more than one million eurosif you want to recover the assets that were seized during the process.
The judge also considered the validation of evidence relating to encrypted telephone communications transmitted by France to national authorities to be constitutional and within legal framework – on platforms encrochat e sky.
Judge Filipa Araújo said that these are “means used by people who want to be apart from legitimate State intervention”.
“We cannot be above the law and think that because we use these systems we are above the law”, pointed out the judge.
Rúben Oliveira’s lawyer, Vítor Parente Ribeiro, claimed in court, during the course of the case, the nullity of the evidence obtained through the interception of encrypted telephone conversations, stating that it was sent from foreign countries to the Portuguese PJ without any judicial control and invoking rulings from the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights to support the nullity of the evidentiary material.
On July 23rd, the Public Ministry (MP) requested in the trial of the “Xuxas” case, that the main implicated, Rúben Oliveira, and another 14 defendants individuals are “exemplarily condemned”, leaving open a possible acquittal for defendant William Cruz.
As for the accused Gurvinder Singh, a trader with a grocery store based in Olivais and which was used by drug traffickers, the MP admitted a mitigation of the sentence for having collaborated with the court in discovering the truth.
In the closing arguments, prosecutor Júlia Henriques considered that the accusation’s constant proof had been provided and argued that “the defendants should be exemplarily condemned” in legal terms and to effective prison sentences, although without quantifying them.
The “King” of drug trafficking in Portugal
Xuxas – which flaunts tattoos of Pablo Escobar and El Chapo – has been in pre-trial detention in the Monsanto high-security prison since the end of June 2022.
According to the Public Ministry’s indictment, the criminal group, led by Rúben Oliveira, had “close links” with drug trafficking organizations in Brazil and Colombia and since mid-2019 imported large quantities of cocaine from South America.
The “Xuxas” organization had – according to the accusation – ramifications in different logistics structures in Portugalparticularly near the sea ports of Setúbal and Leixões, Lisbon airport, among othersthus allowing it to use its influence to import large quantities of cocaine outside the supervision of port and national authorities.
In those locations, the Civil Police carried out cocaine seizures involving defendants who allegedly obeyed orders from Rúben Oliveira.
Cocaine was introduced into Portugal through companies importing fruits and other food and non-food goodsmaking use of maritime containers.
The drug also entered national territory in suitcases by air from Brazil to Portugal.
The defendants allegedly resorted to “encrypted systems typically used by the world’s largest criminal organizations linked to drug trafficking and violent crime” to communicate with each other.
There were 16 individual defendants and three companies on trial.
Before this conviction, Rúben Oliveira had a clean record.
