Howard Lutnick, US Secretary of Commerce (left), with JD Vance, US Vice President (right). A Lutnick company is on the list of victims of the scheme
Hugo Paixão Pinto will be at the center of a pyramid scheme in the real estate sector that promised huge profits and quick access to golden visas for foreign investors, with projects that never got off the ground.
For years, the company Importantaltura defrauded investors in Portugal by presenting itself as a rising real estate developer, offering guaranteed returns and simplified access to golden visas for foreign investors. Now, according to an investigation by , it is insolvent, with a trail of tens of millions of euros missing, works that never progressed and hundreds of investors injured.
At the center of the accusations arises Hugo Paixão Pintoformer owner of SAD do Vitória de Setúbal and identified as the true manager of an alleged fraudulent pyramid scheme. Although the company formally emerged in the name of his mother, Maria Teresa Paixão Pinto, the signs indicate that Hugo Pinto articulated a network of opaque companies, circular businesses and promises that were impossible to keep.
The IR Group brand, used to give the project international credibility, imitated the name of a foreign company founded in 1989, misleading investors. Professional brochures, an office on Avenida da Liberdade and references to operations in Hong Kong and Beijing reinforced the appearance of credibility.
The model was based on sale of properties yet to be builtaccompanied by guarantees of income between 7% and 10% and complete processes to obtain a residence permit. The victims included citizens of various nationalities, many of whom later discovered that the acquired units did not exist in the land registry or that the works had never begun.
The most paradigmatic case is that of Cláudio Fetter, a Brazilian investor who paid in full for a fraction in Lagos that was never built, without having received a deed, income or return of documents.
It also reports that Newmark Holdings, LLC, a company integrated into one of the largest real estate groups in the United States and linked to Howard W. Lutnick, current Secretary of Commerce in the Trump Administration, is among the injured foreign creditors. The North American holding company complains 457 thousand euros in court due to non-compliance with the contract associated with the Lagos Beach Hotel & SPA project, which never got off the ground.
The revelation of the scheme became inevitable when, from 2021, customers began to demand the promised income. Without liquidity, the company entered into a succession of legal maneuvers, including a Special Revitalization Process (PER) which, according to creditors and the Tax Authority, only served to gain time while assets were dissipated. Among these maneuvers will be the sale of 85 units of Lagos Beach for 13 million euros, an amount that was never paid, to a company linked to a close collaborator of Hugo Pinto.
The insolvency, declared in June 2025, recognizes more than 37 million euros in credits.
