Lusa
The network involved several employees of public bodies, who fraudulently accelerated the obtaining of permits for immigrants, who were then left with large debts to criminals.
The Judiciary Police (PJ) continues to dismantle a vast criminal network that, since 2022, facilitated the fraudulent entry and legalization of thousands of immigrants in Portugal. The scheme, highly profitable and with ramifications in several public bodies, charged between 15 thousand and 20 thousand euros for a “legalization package”, especially for citizens of Nepal and Bangladesh, who had greater difficulties in obtaining visas.
The package included employment contracts, NIF, NISSSNS user number, European Health Card, opening bank accounts, certified translations and even residence certificates, says . For many of the immigrants, the amount was paid in stages through their salaries, leaving them stuck in debt to the canvassers.
In the most recent operation, two employees of a health center in Cortegaça, Ovar, were detained for fraudulently assigning more than 10 thousand user numbers. They are indicted for passive corruption, aiding illegal immigration and computer fraud. According to Expresso, one of them was recruited by a member of the network and the other recruited by a colleague, both without apparent economic difficulties.
In total, Operation Gambérria has already led to the detention of 16 people and constituted 26 defendants, with more than one million euros seized and dozens of accounts frozen. Only one of the cells, in Coimbra, managed to legalize 18 thousand immigrants through false NIF, although it is not yet clear whether these cases coincide with those registered in Ovar.
The network, made up of Portuguese and foreigners, was led from Lisbon by an armed man equipped with advanced technology, suspected of involvement in money laundering and forgery. The group included businesspeople, lawyers and accountants who created social media profiles to attract immigrants in their countries of originthen guaranteeing transport, accommodation and documentation.
At PJ just as Many of the immigrants have already left the countrytaking advantage of fraudulent legalization to circulate in Europe.
