Fifteen people have been charged by the Public Prosecutor’s Office with crimes of criminal organization, aiding illegal immigration and falsifying documents, following an investigation carried out by the PJ, which explains how the law in force is used by criminals to exploit immigrants. In this case, more than 6,000 people were victims of the scheme.
Six months after an operation by the Judiciary Police (PJ) arrested six suspected members of a criminal organization aiding illegal immigration with European ramifications, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) this week filed charges against 15 defendants. In the order, to which DN had access, signed by prosecutor Felismina Franco of the Lisbon Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP), examples are given of flaws in the Aliens Act that allow immigrants with false documents to be legalized, exploited and mistreated.
The 15 defendants, from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, are accused of the crimes of criminal organization, aiding illegal immigration and falsifying documents, eight of whom have been in pre-trial detention since July 18. The investigation, which was assisted by the PJ’s National Counterterrorism Unit (UNCT), identified more than three hundred transports on various European roads, to and from Portugal, involving more than 6,000 illegal immigrants.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office claims that most of the vans were rented in Portugal and that these transports were carried out “in overcrowded passenger vehicles (there is a case described in which 21 migrants were traveling in a nine-seater van). In addition, the migrants were “often victims of aggression and mistreatment during their journeys, demanding large sums of money”. In addition, the “high number of foreign citizens in this condition has led to overcrowding in the homes/establishments where they stay overnight while in Portugal, necessarily with poor living conditions, which imply safety risks for themselves and third parties”.
The investigation began in Portugal in February 2022, in cooperation with the European judicial authorities, in particular EUROJUST and Europol.
A law that SEF rejected
According to the evidence gathered, the network operated mainly in Portugal, France, Spain and Germany, at least since 2021, with the aim of attracting “Indo-Asian and (Eur)Asian citizens, mostly Bengalis, Indians and Pakistanis, but also Afghans, Syrians and Turks, who, who are vulnerable due to the precarious living conditions they are offered in their countries of origin, easily accept requests for promises to legalize their stay on European territory, in exchange for large sums of money”.
The plan is said to have been based on flaws in the Aliens Act, duly pointed out in the indictment. “This criminal organization identified the weaknesses/facilities of the SAPA Platform (Automatic Pre-Arrangement System) and has subverted and taken advantage of the legislative changes to Law 23/2007 of July 4, namely the one introduced by Law 102/2017 of August 28, which removed the extraordinary nature of the application for a residence permit (…) transforming it into a normal administrative procedure, unbureaucratic and free of control, without being able to detect the illegalities committed,” the MP warns.
This legislative change, it should be remembered, was already made by the PS government, with Constança Urbano de Sousa as Minister of Internal Affairs and had a negative opinion from SEF, resulting in the resignation of the then national director, Luísa Maia Gonçalves.
With this expedient, it is explained, “from the moment the applicant for a residence permit under Article 88 or 89 of the Portuguese Constitution submits their expression of interest online on SEF’s SAPA electronic platform, with all the fields filled in – with true information or without any information at all, since the system accepts blank pages or elements. º submits their expression of interest online on SEF’s SAPA electronic platform, with all the fields filled in – with truthful information or not, or without any information at all since the system accepts blank pages or pages with elements that have nothing to do with what is required, as long as they are in PDF format – they will be in a situation which, although not that of legal resident in Portugal, is sufficient to prevent them from being removed from our country and, if they are found in an irregular documentary situation in another Schengen country, they will be forced to return to Portugal and not to their country of origin.”
136,000 registered on the portal
According to official figures mentioned in the order, in 2022 and 2023 alone, a total of 136,178 citizens from Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan submitted expressions of interest on the SAPA portal.
From the moment this registration is made, the MP points out, “the process remains on a chronologically organized waiting list, being ‘filtered’ by a worker, at the time from SEF, currently AIMA (Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum), who makes security queries, checks the documents uploaded and gives an initial opinion (positive/negative), which can take up to about 2 years, considering the abnormal number of requests, namely from Indian citizens”.
This delay was taken advantage of “by the criminal group, with the migrants being able to settle on national territory, or in any country in the Schengen area”. With proof of the expression of interest in hand, “the migrants were again transported to other destinations in the Schengen area, such as Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and others, where they actually intended to settle without having the documents to do so.”
No security check
The MP also warns in this order that the SAPA system of the former SEF – currently managed by the new (AIMA) – “does not carry out any security checks on the information uploaded by individuals, particularly with regard to criminal records or measures entered into the Schengen Information System (SIS II), namely those issued by other Schengen countries, particularly for the purposes of non-admission to the Schengen area”.
The defendants “took advantage of the fact that it was a computer system to be able to insert documents that were not true, i.e. the files uploaded were not evaluated and could be blank sheets of paper, which the system would accept and proceed to submit the expression of interest”.
The migrants of this criminal group were recruited “through forums and social networking platforms and through personal contacts in establishments and public places known to be frequented by the Indian Community, located, for example, in Lisbon, in Gare do Oriente, Intendente, Martim Moniz and Mouraria, as well as in the countries of origin where they offer a wide range of services, These services allow them, at first, to enter the Schengen area clandestinely, namely via the Eastern Mediterranean and/or Western Balkans routes, and, secondly, to start an administrative process using false documents with a view to regularizing their documents in Portugal.”