A former soldier in the Republican National Guard (GNR), who served in the Territorial Command of Évora until 2003, is appointed as leader of the group that begins today to be judged in the Court of Beja.
The individual is the main suspect of having set up a scheme that involves more 14 people and 6 Business, responsible for scamming fifty businesspeople, to whom damage greater than 1,7 million.
Francisco Pardal 57 year old, born in Juromenha, Alandroal municipality, imprisoned in the Évora Prison, by final judgment dated 12 May 2022, the defendant is serving a sentence of 9 years and 6 months, of a legal cumulus that involves six conviction processes that total 22 years and 3 months in prison.
The former Guard, which had the collaboration of Joaquim Caeiro Cardoso, appointed as his “right arm”, led a group that between May 2012 and July 2018, set up a scheme that involved the creation of shell companies, two of which were based in a nightlife establishment in Lisbon, opening and closing bank accounts in Portugal and use of checks issued from Spain and individuals who acted as receivers.
The group led by Francisco Pardal was made up of eight other Portuguese, all natural from Borba (Alentejo), three spanish, two Malians and one Brazilian. The six foreign defendants and two companies registered in Spain and controlled by two of the Spaniards, were declared stubborn, by the president of the Collective of Judges of the Beja Court who will judge the case, that there is more 21 attached processes.
Francisco Pardal and Joaquim Cardoso chose targets, presented themselves with different identities and positions, bought goods with fake checks, received invoices and documents that made their possession official. Previously, they contacted businesspeople interested in purchasing trucks or machines, who paid without knowing their origin. Some of whom ended up not receiving the goods purchased, not even the money back. On other occasions, the Dyarra brothers came into the business,, the two malians, that functioned as covered receivers.
The group took advantage of advertisements on websites selling trucks and industrial machinery and used fake checks to “buy” the goods and immediately sell them to recipients at lower prices., before the owners realized the scheme devised. To deceive sellers, the defendants handed over checks, on which the words “Conformed Check” were printed on the front, to make it appear that they were certified checks and on the back was written “BBVA a Gerência” and two false signatures.
In the indictment of the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DCIAP) that the Lidador News (LN) We had access, Francisco Pardal is described as the “driver of criminal behavior” against those who were accused of committing around a hundred crimes of qualified fraud, forgery, money laundering and theft. The former GNR soldier, He is accused of 51 crimes of aggravated fraud, 26 of document forgery, 13 money laundering and 2 theft, most of them recurrently.
No document, the Public Prosecutor describes that Francisco Pardal, even in prison, continues to scam people. "In between 9 June 2016 and 4 December 2018, date on which he was detained and subsequently placed in a prison, continued his criminal behavior”, accused Miguel F. Rodrigues.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
