(Updated) Alentejo: criminal network, trafficking in persons, led by Romanian clan, judged in Sintra.
(UPDATE): Because of the Judicial Court of the District of Lisbon Sintra West has declared “incompetent” to judge the present case in the news, scheduled trial markings, They were canceled. The case was sent to the Judicial Court of the District of Lisbon North Loures, by “be competent”.
The Court of Sintra receives (should receive) from the end of this September, the trial of the criminal network operating people, whose arrests took place in November 2015 and 2016, under the operation “Tightrope”, in Beja, Head, Serpa and Vila Nova de Milfontes.
Twenty-seven people, including five women, aged between 20 and 63 year old, four nationalities, They begin to be tried next day 28 of September, no Court of Sintra, with each one of the defendants accused of a crime and criminal association 35 trafficking offenses people, and three of those involved also account for a prohibited weapon detention crime.
The net, led by Bambaloi of Romanian origin, headed by Victor and Antonica, husband and wife, aided by two daughters, a son and two nephews, He created and led, from Vila Nova de Milfontes, a criminal network that prosecutors, defined as: "Organized human structure and stable and hierarchical logistic in four levels, with distinction of responsibilities of tasks and gains ".
group, 20 (16 Romanian and 4 Bulgarians) elements are in custody, a (Bulgarian) under house arrest with electronic bracelet and six (4 Portuguese, 1 Ukrainian and 1 Romanian) in freedom, by term of identity and residence (TIR), including a lawyer Beja, who was imprisoned between 4 November 2017 and 16 March of this year, when the judge changed the mediated coercion.
The prosecution maintains that the dome of the network "recruited all other elements", including attorney, who supported "the control of workers, women who were forced to engage in the prostitution, in money collection that explored were subject to pay, still exerting physical and psychological violence ", a real climate of terror.
The structure was supported by four companies, created by the accused Hugo Machado, and that the prosecution argues that "were used as a cover, to the contractual link with farms and invoicing ".
Research, carried out by the National Counter-Terrorism Unit (UNCT) the Judicial Police (PJ), in the districts of Beja, Serpa, Odemira and Torres Vedras, found, that between September 2011 and 18 November 2015, under the operation code name "Tightrope", the four companies earned over 800 thousand euros.
The steps taken by the PJ, in September 2015, two months before the arrests, aparece to death by Romanian Iliuta Bonculesco, that the researchers "has not been fully clarified" the way down the stairs to the apartment where he lived and died.
By conspiracy crimes, Leaders Network, Victor and Antonica, They risk a penalty 2 a 8 years in prison and the other defendants 1 a 5 year old. As human trafficking is worth, to each of the accused, go by 3 a 10 years in prison, increased by one third, face to 35 crimes. The detention of prohibited weapon, three of the defendants, incur a punishment of imprisonment for 1 a 5 years or a fine not exceeding 600 days.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
