The organized group, made up of driving school owners, instructors and examiners, provided exam students, who paid 1,000 to 5,000 euros, with technological equipment designed to capture the questions that appeared on the theoretical exam monitor, transmitting the images abroad and allowing these students to be assisted with the solutions sent by “assistants” placed abroad, via radio frequency or mobile phone.
Another reason why people drive so badly in Portugal… Anything goes in Portugal!
The following article is a translation (mostly MT). You can find the link to the original website at the end of it.
Driving license scheme yielded 600 thousand euros
Group used cameras and headsets to give answers in exams. Instructors paid between one thousand and five thousand euros
The Public Prosecutor’s Office charged 131 defendants with criminal association, corruption and computer fraud, carried out in the different capacities of driving school owners, instructors, examiners and individuals interested in illegally obtaining driving licenses, it was announced today.
According to the Lisbon District Attorney General’s Office (PGDL), the defendants include companies that own exam centers, and in the process the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) requested the declaration of loss in favor of the State of the amounts illegally obtained by the defendants as proceeds of crimes, amounting to more than 619,500 euros.
“Sufficient evidence was collected that a group of defendants dedicated themselves permanently and stably to helping those interested in illegally obtaining driving licenses without being qualified to do so, through a scheme of fraudulent intervention during theoretical driving tests, in collusion with the examiners themselves“, says the PGDL.
To this end, the organized group provided those interested in the exams with technological equipment designed to capture the questions that appeared on the theoretical exam monitor, transmitting the images abroad and allowing them to be assisted with the solutions sent by the defendants placed abroad, via radio frequency or mobile phone.
The defendants involved in this organized corruption scheme – says the PGDL – carried with them the camera hidden in the button of their shirt and a wireless headset intended to transmit the necessary information to respond correctly to the tests, as agreed.
“As undue compensation, the defendants from the schools received a sum of between around 1,000 and 5,000 euros, proceeds shared with the examiners who received around 750 euros”, indicates the PGDL.
The facts occurred in around 150 tests carried out between October 2013 and November 2015 and unduly benefited many other candidates.
According to the indictment, the defendants criminally took advantage of the exercise of functions in the examination centers investigated, obtained high profits from this criminal activity, violating the functional duties of exemption, equal treatment of citizens and probity in the exercise of functions of a public nature
and causing danger to road safety, since those involved were approved without an effective driving license.
The criminal activity was dismantled through arrests made on November 17, 2015 by the National Anti-Corruption Unit (UNCC) of the Judiciary Police (PJ) and the Public Ministry (MP), which led the investigation.
The investigation was led by the 9th section of the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP) in Lisbon, assisted by the UNCC of the PJ.
More related news
14 arrested in operation against driving license fraud
20 driving schools will be linked to the scheme. People without knowing how to read or write paid to pass exams
An operation by the Judiciary Police has been underway in the north of the country since the beginning of the day to dismantle a network of corruption involving driving licenses, confirmed the DN.
Fourteen people have already been arrested following 70 home and non-home searches: eight examiners and six school guardians and employees.
Twenty driving schools in the north of the country will be under investigation as well as the ACP exam center in Porto.
The scheme will have allowed around 200 people to pass code exams by paying five thousand euros to the leader of this network. According to SIC Notícias, which provided the information, some of these people did not even know how to read or write, using very advanced technological means, namely micro cameras that broadcast exam questions abroad and radios through which they received the correct answers.
The operation put 150 inspectors on the ground and the investigation had been going on for two years.
For now, the Judiciary Police are only saying that the National Anti-Corruption Unit of the Judiciary Police has been carrying out an operation in the north of the country since the beginning of the day, having already arrested several people on suspicion of corruption.
A country where criminals and the powerful are systematically protected to the detriment of victims and its citizens is the definition of a dictatorship, which is why Portugal should leave the EU.
PORTUGAL ROBBED ME €130.000 EUR AND SIX YEARS OF MY LIFE!
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