The network hosted the victims in Beja, Industrial Park and distributed them to several estates, including in the municipality of Ferreira do Alentejo. They sought to buy the silence of two victims.
It begins today at the Criminal Court of Beja, before a Collective of Judges, the trial of five individuals from the east, three Moldovans and two Romanians, aged between 25 and 43 year old, who are accused in material co-authorship of 79 aid of crimes against illegal immigration.
The case began to be investigated in 31 October 2014 following a complaint filed at the GNR Territorial Post of São Bartolomeu de Messines, by two Romanian nationals offended after fleeing a farm in Ferreira do Alentejo, for being the target of labor exploitation. With the help of the offended, Inspectors of the Aliens and Borders Service (SEF) identified in Ferreira do Alentejo the individuals who exploited them.
A year later, an incident report registered by the GNR of that location was filed., which reported aggressions between citizens of the east motivated by the refusal of some to work without receiving. Later, in July 2017, two Moldovan citizens appeared at the PSP Police Station at Lisbon Airport, who reported that they had been recruited by a Romanian individual, but when they realized that they would be mistreated and subjected to labor exploitation, ending up running away.
According to the indictment of the Public Prosecutor of Ferreira do Alentejo, the defendants set up a scheme and, who “organized the trips, introduced workers in Portugal, being then housed in Beja, with degrading conditions, in a house infested with ticks and where eleven people slept in each room".
In October 2017, two Moldovan citizens filed a complaint with the Beja PSP Police Station, where they denounced the way they came to Portugal and how they were treated. Before formalizing the complaint, at the door of the police station they were approached by one of the defendants who offered 1.000 euros each, not to file a complaint with the authorities.. The victims were pressured to say that they did not know the defendant and that they had lost their passports.
Many of the defendants who are no longer in Portugal, testified for future memory.
Last conviction in December 2020
In December 2020 six individuals, aged between 27 and 49 year old, Romanian and Moldovan nationals were sentenced to prison terms, although some were suspended in its execution, for a crime of aid to illegal immigration, in material co-authorship. Florin Adamescu appointed as leader of the group of eight defendants was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison, in legal height. Rafira Rusu, Constantin Rotaru, Catalin Rusu, Stepanhita Pahomi and Sergiu Gutu were sentenced to prison terms 1 year and 6 months and 3 years and 6 months, suspended in its execution, having two women, Angela Basarab and Mihaela Rosu, been acquitted.
The suspension of the sentences of three of the defendants is conditional on the joint payment of the amount of 8.994,50 euros, on taxes on tobacco illegally placed on the market and sold to victims.
The Judge Panel that judged the case, determined the dismissal of the request for declaration of confiscation of assets submitted by the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP) in the prosecution and returned the defendants 7.463.868,40 euros.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
