Lisbon, July 21, 2026 (Lusa) - The Public Prosecutor's Office will appeal against the acquittal of former banker Ricardo Salgado and the other defendants in a case relating to the alleged corruption of a former vice-president of Banco do Brasil, the Attorney General's Office said today.
«The Public Prosecutor's Office will lodge an appeal,» an official source at the Attorney General's Office told Lusa.
On Monday, the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon acquitted the eight defendants, including Ricardo Salgado, in a case in which the former chairman of Banco Espírito Santo (BES) was accused of having paid, through entities in tax havens, $1.8 million (€1.6 million at the current exchange rate) to the former vice-president of Banco do Brasil, Allan Simões Toledo, so that the latter institution would provide a loan of $200 million (almost €175 million at the current exchange rate) to the Portuguese bank, which went bankrupt in 2014.
The loan was granted in 2011 through the International Money Market and, as the presiding judge stated when reading out the judgment, «not even the use of circumstantial evidence can prove the existence» of a «corrupt agreement» regarding the use of that credit line, which «had existed» since 2009 and which was never fully utilised by BES.
The case also involved allegations against the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, which the court likewise found unproven.
In addition to Ricardo Salgado, the defendants in the case include the former director of BES Madeira, João Alexandre Silva; the former employee of a subsidiary of the Espírito Santo Group (GES) in Dubai, Humberto Coelho; two former employees of BES/GES, Paulo Nacif Jorge and Paulo Murta; and the lawyers Miguel Freitas and Sofia Freitas, as well as the law firm owned by the latter two.
Allan Simões Toledo has not been charged with any offence.
The charges related to active corruption causing harm to international trade, passive corruption in the private sector, and money laundering.
The case, with the indictment dated December 2021, was the first within the so-called ‘Espírito Santo Universe', linked to the collapse of BES/GES, to reach a verdict at first instance.
The trial began on 20 May 2025.
IB/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
