Belgian steals hundreds of thousands of euros by acting as a millionaire from Angola
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The judicial police in Portugal asks the extradition of a Belgian who is suspected of identity fraud. The man is said to have been used by a gang to present himself as another Belgian, a millionaire who lives in Angola. In this way he stole hundreds of thousands of euros in a bank in Lisbon, until an employee smelled bad.
The victim is a Belgian millionaire who lives in Angola and does business. A year ago he received a telephone from a bank employee: he had noticed strange transactions in his account. A lot of money had disappeared.
‘Operation Flanders’ was announced and led this week to the arrest of nine people, writes the Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Noticias. It is about four men and five women, all between 24 and 64 years old. They form a criminal gang accused of identity fraud, money laundering and theft.
One of them is a Belgian, just like the victim. He would have been hired to pretend to be the millionaire from Angola. The fake billionaire was flown to Lisbon for 48 hours, where he visited the bank of the real millionaire to complete various transfers. Thanks to a false identity certificate, he was able to sluice « hundreds of thousands of euros », the police said without mentioning an exact amount. When a bank employee smelled trouble and called his customer, a large -scale investigation was started.
The fake millionaire was flown to Lisbon for 48 hours, where he visited the bank of the real millionaire to complete various transfers
The suspects were arrested a year after the date. Among other things, they helped with the preparation of the theft by touching the bank details of the victim, falsifying the proof of identity and money laundering of the stolen money. Among the arrested people is also a former bank employee and an Angolese. The Belgian suspect was arrested in our country, after Portugal had issued a European arrest warrant in collaboration with the Belgian federal police.
During the operation, 15 house searches were carried out in which documents, computer and telecommunication equipment, luxury vehicles and other objects related to the crimes, as well as drugs and ammunition, were seized.
