Businesswoman sold real estate without the consent of owners

Five women were arrested following a Judicial Police operation in the Algarve. At issue are crimes of qualified burla, document falsification and capital bleaching in the real estate sector.

There are more than two dozen victims and losses exceed seven million euros.

According to the PJ statement, a real estate businesswoman promoted online, at least for a year, the sale of real estate in the Algarve, essentially with foreign investors, without the knowledge of the owners of the houses, who were surprised by the existence of provisional sales records of their properties.

« For this purpose, the suspect entered into contracts for the promise of purchase and sale of these properties in the offices of applicants located in the Algarve region or through documents by them, without knowledge or the intervention of property owners, reinforcing the conviction of the victims about their credibility, » says PJ.

There were victims who even gave him an amount of over one million euros, corresponding to the value of the respective sign, which were appropriated by the suspicion.

In the course of the operation three home searches and four searches were carried out in solicitor offices, « in which a high probative documentary collection, computer equipment, cash and jewelry values ​​were seized. »

Authorities admit to the existence of other victims, having been found during the operation of the PJ, documents related to business still unknown to the investigation, and have been discovered evidence of “attempts to contact alleged customers”, and have been formalized in recent days, for payments of more than two million euros seven hundred thousand euros.

The arrested will be present to the first judicial interrogation with a view to the application of coercion measures.