Benfica’s lawyers request the file or, at least, the suspension of the “Blue Bag” process, arguing that nothing has been proven in five years of investigation, that is, that there has been a “blue bag” to pay favors to third parties. , allegedly football referees, which could result in relegation for the club.
The defense is based, according to the Diário de Notícias on Tuesday, on the final report of the investigation by the Judicial Police (PJ), which dates from August 28 and points to “strong indications” of the practice of the crime of tax fraud. . , in an exhibition sent to the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP) in Lisbon.
Lawyers João Medeiros, Paulo Saragoça da Matta and Rui Patrício maintain that the PJ report is “a handful of nothing, in reference to who were the initial suspects in this process.” In this way, they consider that “despite the thorough, exhaustive and lengthy investigation of the facts, no more than one (alleged) tax fraud was found or charged.” This is because the Judicial Police does not indicate the use of funds to pay third parties.
The Judicial Police, in its conclusions quoted by the newspaper, affirm that “strong indications were collected of the practice of the crime of qualified tax fraud” because part of the defendants Benfica SAD, Benfica Estádio, Luís Filipe Vieira (then president of the club ), Domingos Soares de Oliveira (administrator of the SAD) and the then financial director Miguel Moreira “designed a criminal plan, based on the fictitious allocation of costs to the aforementioned companies.”
In their arguments, Benfica’s lawyers point to the following sentence presented in the PJ’s conclusions: “It was not possible to determine the circumstances in which the aforementioned amounts [mais de dois milhões de euros] returned to the Benfica Groupnor to whom were they actually delivered and what is their final destination, whether for legal or illegal purposes.”
Source: Observadora
