A Lisbon solicitor, the exotically named Aurora Boaventura, has been covering up a dirty secret.
Far from acting for the State in collecting monies due and passing on funds from seized goods and properties, she has been altering paying-in details to her own financial benefit.
In what has been called ‘one of the largest frauds ever committed by an acting Portuguese solicitor’ Boaventura has channelled at least €2.5 million from debtors to her own offshore bank accounts.
The respected and high-profile solicitor has been in charge of between 8,000 and 10,000 property and goods seizures in the past three years in question but now faced charges of embezzlement, altering computerised records and syphoning off money to her offshore accounts.
The solicitor has been acting mostly for the State by collecting money from debtors but her clients include private individuals and companies who used her services to collect debts that were paid by the debtor, but never passed on.
Boaventura,55, is accused of altering paying-in details to divert funds but has been tripped up by the Caixa Geral de Depósitos bank account activity reporting system designed to highlight transactions that are out-of-the-ordinary and hence suspicious, especially when money is going to overseas accounts.
The solicitor’s house and her two offices have been searched and her Portuguese bank accounts frozen but the destination accounts have yet to be accessed and monies returned as ‘proceeds of crime.’
With the past few years of austerity producing brisk trade in other people’s misery, those who have had their goods and properties seized by Sra Boaventura still owe their creditors and it remains to be seen what stance the State and other creditors will take.
