João Relvas / Lusa
Eurico Castro Alves
The race for medical cannabis licenses in Portugal exposed weaknesses in investor controls, after Eurico Castro Alves’ consultancy brokered contacts between Sync Nature and a company owned by a Brazilian businessman investigated for international drug trafficking.
The consultancy founded by Eurico Castro Alvesformer president of Infarmed and former Secretary of State for Health, presented a Portuguese medical cannabis company with a company controlled by a Brazilian businessman that would become convicted in Portugal for cocaine trafficking.
This businessman was already identified by Brazilian authorities in an investigation into international drug trafficking, money laundering and illegal currency remittances, reveals the .
The Brazilian businessman would be sentenced, in July 2023, by the Matosinhos Court to five years in prison for drug traffickingin a process different from that which took place in Brazil.
Between 2018 and 2023, the medical cannabis sector in Portugal recorded a strong expansion, based on licensing processes, technical projects and industrial units in preparation. In several cases, companies that had not yet begun commercial production looking for investors for projects already licensed or in an advanced stage of approval by Infarmed.
A WiseHScreated in 2016 by Eurico Castro Alves, assumed an important role in this sector. The consultant provided regulatory support, structured projects industrial plants, monitored licensing processes with Infarmed and prepared production units according to Good Manufacturing Practice standards.
According to sources heard by Público, these services could reach values of several million euros.
A Sync Nature contratou a WiseHS to ensure licensing and technical monitoring of the project in Oliveira do Bairro. Later, when the promoters were looking for investors or buyers for the company, in a process that was already taking place before January 2023, the consultant presented potential interested parties, including Wdealer.
A Wdealer would eventually go into insolvency in July 2025. The process documentation shows that negotiations with Sync Nature were taking place at least before January 2023months before the conviction of Cláudio Rocha Júnior in Portugal.
At that time, however, the businessman had already been identified by the Federal Police and the Federal Public Ministry of Brazil within the scope of Operation Discovery.
Brazilian research was born from the seizure of hundreds of kilos of cocaine hidden in an executive jet, in Salvador, Bahia, when the aircraft was preparing to return to Portugal.
Brazilian authorities accused Cláudio Rocha Júnior of being part of the “first echelon” of an alleged organization dedicated to international cocaine trafficking, placing him in the same group as figures linked to the air transport of the drug and European recipients.
In Portugal, Wdealer was also flagged in Public Prosecutor’s Office investigations related to suspected money laundering.
A DCIAP report described the company as the main center for financial movementthat of the Brazilian businessman, with national and international transfers of high value, cash deposits and operations whose economic justification has not always been demonstrated.
Eurico Castro Alves admitted to Público that WiseHS made a mistake by not carrying out formal business, reputational or anti-money laundering verification measures in relation to Wdealer and Cláudio Rocha Júnior. The former ruler denies, however, any conscious participation illegality or personal benefit.
Castro Alves the monitoring committee for the Emergency and Transformation Plan in Health, which he had coordinated, after public criticism and an open letter signed by hundreds of doctors, where they were doubts were raised about the accumulation of functions and potential conflicts of interest.
More recently, IGAS opened an investigation into suspicions about the legality of payments associated with surgeries performed after hours normal.
As part of this process, Castro Alves, director of Surgery at the Santo António Local Health Unit, between 2021 and 2025, after suggest your own remuneration. ULS de Santo António argues that the payments were legal.
