Portugal’s Mota-Engil construction company and its founder have been offered a deal, pay €6 million and the State will drop its charges of ‘qualified tax fraud.’
The offer does not mean that Mota-Engil is innocent of fraud, it is guilty and Operation Furaçao has proved it, but if the €6 million is paid over, fraud charges will be suspended and then dropped after two years.
The founder of the civil engineering company, António Mota, first was accused of fraud in 2009 but the inquiry into his dodgy dealings only concluded this May, proving that he had been involved in a huge tax scam.
Operation Furaçao rounded up an estimated 700 defendants involved in an overseas invoicing scam who also can escape court if they pay back-taxes and interest. Many have jumped at the opportunity.
António Mota, his sister Maria Manuela and the company Mota-Engil have between them agreed to pay €6.1 million in two installments in a deal with the Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DCIAP).
This is for the tax fraud charges, with suspicions of embezzlement and money laundering set aside.
Companies that ahve been involved in building Portugal’s road system also have taken the deal with one, Estradas Lusoscut (today Portuscale) paying €2.7 million.
Super-judge Carlos Alexandre is not best pleased at DCIAP’s pragmatic approach but has gone along with it as one case set a precedent, opening the way for companies and individuals to buy their way out of trouble.
The DCIAP said that the deal recognises that many were not deliberately acting as fraudsters, with the exception of BCP and the Espírito Santo Group) and were keen to pay the tax plus interest which in itself sent out the message that when tax is due, it will be collected.
Carlos Alexandre disagrees as the defendants have been accused of a criminal offence should not be allowed to walk just because they are able to pay up.
António Mota and his sister, Maria Manuela Mota Santos, accepted a proposal by a BCP subsidiary to use a British company to overcharge for machinery delivered to Mota-Engil. The excess money was then spirited away to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands.
The British company, Intrade, invoiced €32 million between 2001 and 2005 which was €7 million higher than the costs of the equipment.
This surplus was transferred to an account at BCP in the Cayman Islands on behalf of Aryllus Holdings which was controlled by António Mota and sister who paid themselves from this account.
Portugal's former deputy prime minister Paulo Portas recently joined Mota-Engil as a consultant specialising in Latin America.
