Police conduct searches at Bank of Portugal over corruption suspicions

Portugal’s Judicial Police (PJ) has conducted swoop and search activities at the country’s central bank and several State organisations over “suspected corruption crimes”.

At issue are acts that occurred between 2017 and 2025. The Minister of Justice says she was “surprised by the news this morning” about these searches – and has already asked for “a factual report from the targeted entities”

The Judicial Police launched a mega-operation on Thursday morning with about 250 inspectors engaged in 75 searches targeting suspects of various crimes – such as corruption in the acquisition of goods and services for state agencies in the IT and technology areas. These acts may have represented fraud in the order of tens of millions of euros, CNN Portugal has discovered. One of the targets of the searches is the Bank of Portugal’s facilities. For now, no arrests have been made.

The issue is the overcharging of services, with invoices being inflated by private companies in Portugal – which gave rise to the police operation investigating crimes such as corruption, fraud in obtaining subsidies, tax fraud, abuse of power, economic participation in business, influence peddling, money laundering or criminal association. The investigation is being coordinated between the Judicial Police and the DCIAP.

In a statement, the Public Prosecutor’s Office reported that “the searches took place in the area of Greater Lisbon, Porto and Braga, namely in homes, accounting firm offices, company headquarters, public institutes and other State services”. “These searches are intended to collect information related to the employees of these services and are not aimed at political decision-makers.” Fifty forensic police experts also participated in the searches.