Face Oculta (Hidden Face) is a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

nationwide political corruption,

money-laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

and corporate

tax evasion Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the tax ...

scandal, first noticed in October 2009. The ''

Polícia Judiciária The (PJ; en, Judiciary Police) is the national criminal investigation police agency of Portugal, focused in fighting serious crimes, including homicides, kidnapping, organized crime, terrorism, illegal drug trade, corruption, cybercrime and ...

'' investigated the business group headed by Manuel Godinho, suspected of economic crimes and bribery of managers of public funds. All Godinho’s companies, many of which were linked to business waste and waste management, are based in the Aveiro District. Godinho was arrested on October 28, 2009, in Aveiro, in relation to economic crimes involving an oxygen-treatment and environmental cleaning group. By early November, 14 people had been indicted. Several companies' employees were investigated, among them those of

Petrogal Galp Energia, SGPS, S.A. is a Portuguese multinational energy corporation, headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal. Galp consists of more than 100 companies engaged in every aspect of the oil and natural gas supply, hydrocarbon exploration and producti ...

and

Portucel Soporcel The Navigator Company (formerly known as Portucel Soporcel Group) is a Portuguese pulp and paper company. The Navigator Company has a productive capacity of 1.6 million tonnes of paper and 1.4 million tonnes of pulp, with 1,380 ...

. Also investigated were GNR officers, town hall civil servants (most notoriously from the Gouveia Municipality), businesspersons (most prominently Manuel Godinho and his right-hand man, Namércio Cunha, a formal suspect and alleged liaison between Godinho and REN, the company led by José Penedos), and former politicians - noted examples include Armando Vara (

Millennium bcp Portuguese Commercial Bank ( pt, Banco Comercial Português, BCP) is a Portuguese bank that was founded in 1985 and is the largest private bank in the country. BCP is a member of the Euronext 100 stock index and its current chief executive officer ...

) and José Penedos ( REN). Former politician Armando Vara is reported by the police investigation to have had suspicious phone calls with the then Portuguese Prime Minister

José Sócrates José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, GCIH (born 6 September 1957), commonly known as José Sócrates (), is a Portuguese politician who was the prime minister of Portugal from 12 March 2005 to 21 June 2011. For the second half of 2007, he ...

. These phone calls were recorded by the investigators. Sócrates denied any involvement, claiming he was only talking to a friend. Sócrates was not indicted at the time, but fourteen other people were. Sócrates was subsequently arrested in November 2014 and indicted in a separate investigation. The case ended in September 2014 with the following being convicted: * Armando Vara, former minister and former vice-president of Millennium BCP, received five years imprisonment. * Manuel Godinho received seventeen years and six months imprisonment. * José Penedos, former president of REN, received five years imprisonment. * Paulo Penedos, son of José Penedos, received four years imprisonment. * Maribel Rodriguez, Godinho’s secretary, received two years and a €3,000 fine, nine months imprisonment and a , but the prison-time was suspended. * Namércio Cunha was sentenced to one year and 6 months imprisonment, but the prison-time was suspended.

Notes and references

{{Reflist Corruption in Portugal Trials in Portugal