A Chinese businessman with Portuguese nationality has been accused of having brought over a thousand Chinese citizens to Portugal, quite illegally.
The 41-year old was arrested in 2011 by the Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiros (SEF) and was charged with 528 crimes but the judge let him go free pending trial. Unsurprisingly, the accused is now nowhere to be found.
The Chinese fraudster was working in Portugal as a translator and set up bank accounts, and arranged social security numbers for immigrants by faking offers of employment.
Chen Xiaomin manged to get away with his illegal activity for 10 years as he built up one of the largest networks for illegal immigration in Europe. There are now several international arrest warrants with his name on and the SEF have not yet explained how the fraudster got away with his scam for so many years.
Chen Xiaomin himself had multiple identities and managed more than 156 companies which he used to offer non-existent jobs to paying Chinese customers who fancied a spell in Europe. It is estimated that he made upwards of €7 million over the years he was operating.
The price for the full service was around €6,000 per immigrant who was assured of a full fake documentation service.
