The Public Prosecutor’s Office accuses a German businessman of having seized a castle valued at more than four million euros, located in Loulé, in the Algarve. According to the newspaper Expresso, the case also involves a lawyer and a doctor, and is being tried in the Court of Faro. The court believes that the defendant, identified as RF, aged 47, will have set up a scheme that began in the last years of the life of the real owner of the property, a French citizen who died in 2018.
According to the same source, the Public Ministry understands that the businessman took advantage of the elderly Frenchman’s physical and mental weakness to take over the property and four other buildings. The prosecution maintains that RF resorted to “cunning and deceit” to carry out the plan.
Doctor signed the document without knowing the final destination
Also according to the newspaper, the case took a new turn when the businessman convinced a doctor and a nurse to sign a document, supposedly destined for French Social Security. The declared objective would be to prove that the elderly French man, admitted to a long-term care unit in Portimão, was alive. However, according to the same source, the document was falsified and used to simulate a purchase and sale operation by the castle’s management company.
Without knowing it, the health professionals gave the “green light” to the transfer of the property from the hands of the Frenchman to those of the German businessman. The doctor, suspicious, photocopied the document she had signed and handed it over to the Judiciary Police, who began the investigation.
Hidden death and business at the registry office
The publication writes that, at the end of 2017, the French citizen’s health condition worsened, and he died at the beginning of 2018. The son, resident in France, only found out about the death around 20 days later, as the death was hidden by the businessman and his partner, also a defendant in the case.
One month after his death, RF’s lawyer friend, also German, bought the four buildings belonging to the Frenchman, despite the fact that the power of attorney he held had lost validity with the death of the principal.
According to the same source, the Public Prosecutor’s Office has no doubt that this trip to the registry office was planned by the main defendant, with the connivance of the lawyer. Both are accused of aggravated fraud and RF also faces suspicion of document forgery.
Defense guarantees that the deceased’s will was
RF’s defense, represented by lawyers Tiago Geraldo and Maria Joana Cabral, presented an opposite version. The publication adds that the defenders say they are confident in a “full acquittal”, arguing that “the deceased’s wishes were respected” and that the process is an attempt to take advantage of them by third parties with no relation to the Frenchman during his lifetime.
In a request cited by , the defense requested an examination of the documents signed by the deceased, as well as those signed by the doctor and nurse during hospitalization. A witness also stated, in court, that the Frenchman had expressed his desire to transfer the castle’s management company to the defendant, having even witnessed the signing of a draft contract.
Contradictions and luxury heritage
In the trial sessions held in Faro, the doctor denied having signed more than one document, rejecting having authenticated any sales contract. The defense, in turn, argues that there are “insurmountable contradictions” in the evidence presented, which can only be overcome with technical and scientific expertise.
The castle, built in the 1980s, is described by a real estate agency as a combination of a medieval fort and a Moorish-influenced palace, with towers, cloisters, hanging gardens and an Andalusian courtyard.
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