Welcome to the Week em Breve, a wrap-up of important Portuguese news to keep you up to date and in the know.
Report claims Portugal gained over $54 billion in economic benefit from golden visa scheme
With all the wealthy buying their way into Portuguese residency, for €300,000 each and up, the country has seen a more than €54 billion “economic impact,” according to a new report.
That’s on top of the roughly €9 billion that the scheme brought in directly since its inception in 2012..
The program resulted in €6 “generated in broader economic activity” from each €1 invested directly through the program, but the investors also “supported” 25,000 to 30,000 jobs, and contributed to the country’s A+ sovereign credit rating, according to the report.
The report was put out by the UK-based World Digital Foundation, a “marketing, media communications, events and data company,” according to its website, in collaboration with Portugal Pathways and the Portugal Investment Owners Club, which according to the press release “supports high-net-worth individuals navigate their Golden Visa journey.”
Illegal residency scheme charged Nepalese and Bangladeshi immigrants up to €20,000
Everyone is trying to make money off those seeking residency, it seems: Portugal’s Judicial Police (Polícia Judiciária — PJ) said it uncovered a criminal network operating since 2022 that charged €15,000 to €20,000 for so-called “legalization packs” for immigrants from Nepal and Bangladesh, according to Expresso.
The pack included all the basics that can take months to obtain, such as a NIF tax ID number, Social Security number, and a “número de utente” in the national health service, according to the publication.
It also included translation and certification of records, help opening bank accounts, obtaining employment contracts, and more, Expresso writes.
A cell in Coimbra that’s being dismantled by PJ apparently “legalized” 18,000 immigrants with fraudulent NIFs, according to the SEC Notícias.
Two Health Ministry staff detained for signing up illegal immigrants
PJ has also detained two administrative employees of the Health Ministry (Ministério da Saúde) accused of fraudulently signing up thousands of illegal immigrants for the National Health Service (Sistema Nacional de Saúde), according to CNN Portugal.
The two employees, aged 40 and 54 and both employed at an unnamed health unit (Unidade de Saúde Familiar – USF) in Central Portugal, allegedly received compensation for assigning números de utente to thousands of foreigners who aren’t entitled to medical care in the SNS because they’re here illegally, the news network writes.
The arrests are part of Operação Gambérria, which has so far led to 16 people being arrested and 26 being interviewed, including seven businessmen, a lawyer and an employee of the Directorate-General for Consular Affairs and the Portuguese Communities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PJ says.
Far-right Chega veers further right with call to kick out legal immigrants
The far-right Chega party isn’t content with the restrictive measures being put into place on immigration by the current administration — it now wants to send away legal immigrants, too.
As part of the state budget for 2026, André Ventura’s party has submitted a proposal for what’s dubbed the “National Remigration Program” (Programa Nacional de Remigração), which could affect up to 1 million immigrants, legal and illegal, according to Sábado.
The publication adds that the term “remigração” is favored by the ultra-right and subtitles its article, “André Ventura imitates Vox and AfD,” far-right groups in Spain and Germany, respectively.
As Diário de Notícias points out, that “program” first appeared in Portugal on the social networks of the extremist right-wing group Reconquista, which is currently under investigation by PJ.
“Now it is in Parliament, through Chega,” the publication writes.
Portugal’s airline privatization getting less interest than hoped
Only three airlines, all of them in Europe, have expressed interest in buying a minority stake in Portugal’s flagship airline, TAP, according to Reuters.
British Airways owner IAG, Air France-KLM and Germany’s Lufthansa have submitted expressions of interest, “falling short of government hopes,” the newswire writes.
It’s unclear whether the lack of bids is related to an ongoing investigation into suspicions of past corruption at TAP, whose headquarters were raided by Portuguese police last Tuesday, along with 25 other locations, Reuters reported separately.
The raid is related to a 2023 investigation into “a complex aircraft leasing deal” struck in 2015 soon after TAP was first privatized, according to the newswire.
Full ownership of the airline was then returned to the state.
Now that TAP is being privatized again, non-binding offers are due by the middle of March next year, and the privatization, relaunched this summer, is expected to be done in the second half of next year, according to Reuters.
A tale of Kevin Spacey, a weird space-age movie, a Ukrainian marketing guru, a crypto influencer wanted for operating Ponzi schemes, and what all of this has to do with Lisbon
Try to stay with us: Elledgy Media, a production company owned by Elvira Paterson, a Ukrainian businesswoman residing in Lisbon, that’s behind the movie The Portal of Force — starring Kevin Spacey (yes, that Kevin Spacey), Dolph Lundgren (ditto), and Russian businessman-cum-comic book creator Vladimir Okhotnikov, a.k.a. Lado, who’s under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for his alleged role in a $304 million Ponzi and pyramid scheme related to a (you guessed it) cryptocurrency platform — is under investigation by the Department of Investigation and Prosecution of Lisbon (Departamento de Investigação e Ação Penal, DIAP) over allegations of money-laundering, according to Eco.
There’s far more to the story — there’s a massive report on Elledgy and Paterson by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists — if you choose to go down that rabbit hole.
We’ll just leave you with this:
