Coimbra, Portugal, Aug. 26, 2025 (Lusa) - A "highly organised" network, which operated mainly from the Greater Lisbon area, is alleged to have extorted over half a million euros from more than 30 victims, mainly men, via computer, Portugal's criminal investigation police agency, PJ revealed on Tuesday.
"We're talking about a very organised network that was dedicated to extortion using computers. They falsified “Facebook” and “WhatsApp” accounts and interacted with potential victims," said the PJ director, Avelino Lima.
Portugal's criminal investigation police agency, PJ, arrested seven people today, aged between 20 and 46, in various parts of the country, on suspicion of committing the offences of aggravated extortion and money laundering.
At a press conference held this afternoon in Coimbra, the PJ director explained that the "unwary victims" believed they were in a legitimate interaction with an identified person and ended up exposing themselves by sharing intimate and sexual images.
"From then on, everything was quickly stopped and they moved on to extortion, which was greatly aggravated by the amounts, by acting in a gang and, in fact, they harmed Portuguese citizens to a very high degree," he added.
According to Avelino Lima, the PJ identified amounts of over half a million euros.
"Initially, they asked for an amount to measure the victim's capacity, and then, believing that the problem had been solved, which it hadn't, the amounts grew. I can tell you that one of the victims is worth very close to €200,000," he described.
The organised group, made up of five men and two women, all come from a nation belonging to the Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP), operating in Portugal and "using [mobile phone] numbers with that country's callsign".
"The group knew each other, some of the members were related to each other, and they effectively took advantage of the financial proceeds to dilute them through the financial system and thus also committed, in our view and that of the Public Prosecutor's Office, the offence of money laundering, for which they are also indicted," he said.
According to Avelino Lima, a total of more than 30 victims have been identified, mainly men, all of whom are of legal age.
However, the PJ believes that this number could grow, acknowledging the possibility that the network's membership could also increase.
"We're talking about a group of perpetrators who lived exclusively from this. This is a very lucrative criminal activity, because the resources required are what we know and, in fact, the profits are very high: it's a crime of mass dissemination in search of potential victims," he said.
He also told journalists that "not infrequently" the victims thought they were "talking to slender and very interesting women, from the perspective of what social relations are and from the perspective of relations between men and women".
"Often they're not even in contact with any women; they're in contact with digital content. In other words, it's a reality that really transcends the knowledge that most people have and it's these people who end up being the big victims," he warned.
The police operation, which led to the arrest of five men and two women, was carried out today in Albufeira, Almada, Aveiro, Moita, Montijo, Setúbal and Sintra, with 14 home and non-home searches carried out.
The investigation began in February, with the first denunciation of this group occurring in Coimbra.
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