Under a European arrest warrant, a 61-year-old man was extradited to Portugal after being arrested in Switzerland for 25 crimes of qualified fraud and three crimes of forgery.
A 61-year-old Portuguese citizen, recently arrested in Switzerland for committing fraud, has been extradited to Portugal, the Judicial Police (PJ) reported on Monday.
In a statement, the PJ said that, through the Criminal Investigation Department of Leiria and the International Cooperation Unit, it carried out the extradition of the man. arrested in switzerlandunder a European arrest warrant issued by the Judicial Court of the District of Santarém.
Extradition follows the practice of 25 crimes of qualified fraud and three crimes of forgery or document falsification, committed in 2004 and 2005, in various areas of Portugal.
According to the PJ, the first known case occurred in Torres Novas, the suspect’s modus operandi being the falsification of certified checks from a banking institution, issued by two companies, one from the pharmaceutical sector and the other from insurance.
The man resorted to “newspaper classifieds, specifically promotions for the sale of vehicles by individuals, selected the victims and, after telephone contact, continued personal contact where he made the purchase of vehicles, receiving as a form of payment forged checks with the value of the sale”.
The PJ advances that the man acted in co-authorship with another Portuguese citizenboth with the complicity of two other people, “having investigated and identified the fraudulent acquisition of 14 high-end vehicles, recovered in the Greater Porto region.”
The Judicial Police traveled to Switzerland, where the detainee was handed over to them by the Swiss authorities, having proceeded to hand him over to the prison services, so that he could serve the 12-year prison sentence in which he was sentenced.
Source: Observadora
