While those suspected of taking full advantage of Portugal’s Golden Visa scheme wait for their court dates, a top Lisbon lawyer seems to have found a further 'market opportunity' and now stands accused of pinching an estimated €6 million from overseas visa applicants.
The well-known lawyer, Maria Antónia Cameira, has been arrested and detained by the Judicial Police on suspicion of having made millions of euros by cheating at least a dozen foreign citizens who wanted to buy qualifying Golden Visa properties, sent her their money and ended up with neither.
Dra Cameira, 59, is charged with scamming foreigners, forging documents and good old money laundering. She dealt with investors from China, Macau, South Africa and Brazil and persuaded them to send her funds for property purchases that never took place.
Overseas clients who used Cameira's company, ‘Cameiro Legal’, which purported to specialise in ‘Business Immigration’, were whisked from the airport by limo to top hotels and generally given the old 'soft soap' treatment.
The lawyer also advertised her competence in sorting out all the bureaucratic aspects of the Golden Visa application process with SEF, Portugal's Immigration Service.
Customers were taken to visit luxury homes with prices over the €500,000 threshold and later were duped into transferring the purchase money to the lawyer to effect the transaction.
This is where the scheme seems to have fallen apart for those keen to take advantage of Portugal's generous taxation laws - the lawyer kept the money that was meant to pay for properties for her clients - Cameira now faces charges for the theft of millions of euros with some of the properties being ‘sold’ several times over to foreign buyers.
It was not long before the complaints started to come in to the National Anti-Corruption Unit of the Judicial Police, whose officers on Tuesday June 11th, arrested the lawyer and carried out searches at her home and plush offices.
What happened to the money? She bought properties in her own name and opened several bank accounts in which to conceal the stolen cash.
In October 2016, the lawyer was convicted and sentenced in absentia to six years in jail in the UK for pinching £300,000 relating to the purchase of a property.
Dra Cameira is said to have paid back the money and requested a retrial but fled the UK. She seems able to have been able to work in Portugal in the meantime, even though her clients were at great risk.
