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Thirteen of the 14 defendants arrested on Thursday 2nd July in an investigation involving private security firms are in custody, according to informed lawyers for the defendants outside the Criminal Court Center (TCIC).

In addition to these 13 defendants who are in custody, a former PSP agent was released, but was banned from contact with elements of SPDE company responsible for security at Dragon Stadium in Porto, and the use of weapons. According to Attorney General’s Office, in Operation Phoenix , in charge of the Central Research Department and Prosecution (DCIAP), those arrested are suspected of criminal association, illegal exercise of private security activity in prohibited weapon detention, aggravated extortion, coercion and serious assualt.

In addition to those arrested on Thursday, searches were conducted in several areas of the country, including Lisbon, Porto, Amarante, Lamego, Braga, Vila Real, Lousada.  Facilities at FC Porto and the residence of the vice-president of Antero Henrique club were searched because of its links with a security company that provides services in FC Porto.

In a statement, the PSP also indicated that 40 weapons, about 121 thousand euros, 10 vehicles and ammunition of various calibres, as well as documentation has been seized.

Since the beginning of the year some 153 000 migrants were detected at Europe’s external borders. This represents a 149% increase when compared to the same pe­riod in 2014 when 61 500 migrants entered Europe.

In May the total number of detections rose by 26% in relation to April and reached 50 500. Considering seasonal trends, it is expected that the migratory pressure will continue to increase during the summer period on all routes.

Compared to April, the largest increase was reported on the Western Balkan route (the Hungarian land border with Serbia) where in May the number of apprehended migrants exceeded 10 000. In the period between 1 January and 31 May 2015, over 50 000 migrants were detected on this route which constitutes an 880% increase com­pared to the same period in 2014.

The land route towards Hungary constitutes the main transit route for migrants who entered the EU from Greece and Bulgaria. This route is considered safer than other routes by migrants from Central Asian and Middle Eastern countries and the fares charged by people smugglers are lower.

Overall, in May, some 19 000 migrants used the Eastern Mediterranean route – a 32% increase since April. Since the beginning of the year, detections on the Eastern Mediterranean route have exceeded 48 000, which is almost five and a half times more than last year. This large increase, mostly due to the rise in the number of Syrian and Afghan migrants poses a significant challenge to the reception capacity in the Greek Aegean Islands.

The migratory situation in Central Mediterranean remains difficult. In May the numbers of detected migrants exceeded 20 500 – the highest monthly level this year and a 29% increase compared to April. In the period between 1 January to 31 May 2015, there were over 47 000 arrivals in Italy, a moderate increase (+14%) compared to the same period in 2014.

Most migrants arriving in Italy this year depart from Libya (over 42 000), but also to a much smaller extent from Egypt (1 740), Turkey (770), Greece (719) and Tunisia (256).

Compared to the first four months of 2014, detections in the Western Mediterranean have increased both on its land and sea borders: with 108% increase at Spain’s land borders between Morocco and Ceuta and Melilla (over 3 200) was reported at the sea route between Morocco and Algeria towards the Spanish Levante coast. The increasing trend is believed to be related to the summer season.

By judgment of the Court of Almada a national citizen has been sentenced to one year imprisonment for slanderous denunciation and defamation.

The person concerned is already serving a sentence of five years and six months for aggravated fraud and falsification of documents following an investigation of the Foreigners and Borders Service. (SEF)

This judgment comes in the wake of a complaint made by the Foreigners and Borders Service, who was the victim of the defamation and slander.

The conviction was made on the 11th of June

The pilot tests of the European Project ‘Smart Borders’ ended 4th June at Lisbon’s Airport.Portugal was the first Country of Europe who tested an innovative program for entry and departures of Schengen Area.

The Immigration and Borders Service, who manages the Smart Borders Project at national level in cooperation with the eu-LISA agency, will received at Lisbon’s Airport the visit of representatives from thirteen Member States, including Latvia (as EU presidency), European Commission, eu-LISA Agency and General Secretariat of the Council, with the purpose of collecting information regarding the results of the Smart Borders Project.

The tests conducted at the Lisbon’s air border ended on this date, yet they will start in other Member States’ borders, hence this is a moment of share of knowledge, challenges and final results, given that Portugal was the starting point – on March 15 – of the entire European project.

This project aims at finding the best human and technological solutions for the implementation of a system for controlling the borders’ entries and exits, in Europe, of Third-country citizens, named Entry Exit System (EES). Apart from this, the European Union also wishes to test the viability of the project Registered Traveller Programme (RTP) which will allow border crossing through electronic borders to Third-country nationals, duly registered as frequent flyers.

Electronic borders (Automated Border Control (ABC) eGates) were up to this date only used by European citizens over 18-years old. During the testing period, Third-country citizens, in a set of 20 countries, were able to promote the use of their electronic passport and use these devices to exit from the country.

With SEF’s management and the support of ANA/VINCI and Vision-Box®, Portugal conducted at Lisbon’s Airport, three types of tests, not simultaneous, where in addition to the use of electronic borders to exit the country were also tested, at the international arrivals area, the possibility of collection of biometric identifiers (iris, facial image and fingerprints) by using specific kiosks.

We now face ever-changing realities and one of the purposes of this project will be the examination of numbers and facts collected from the several experiences as regards the passenger point of view – foreign citizen, and also the Border Officer point of view, who has the duty to harmonise the need for a swift border control with both national and EU security.

Therefore, Portugal was a pioneer in the implementation of the Smart Borders Project and, as such, will provide a decisive contribution to final conclusions that will be presented to the European institution

Major changes to Terrorism Laws

The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism represents a mobilization of commitment, coordination and cooperation of all national structures, with direct and indirect responsibility in the fight against this threat,” said the Minister of Internal Affairs, Anabela Rodrigues, at the press conference after the meeting of the Council of Ministers decided that its adoption, where was also present the Minister of Justice, Paula Teixeira da Cruz.

Adding that “the cooperation between the armed forces and security forces and services is deepened in view of the objectives defined in the Strategy”, the Minister listed the structuring its five pillars:

• Sense – is the early identification of action potential terrorist threats, through the acquisition of essential knowledge for effective combat;
• Prevent – is to understand and identify the causes that determine the appearance of processes of radicalization, recruitment and terrorist acts;
• Protect – is to strengthen the security of the priority targets, reducing both their vulnerability, whether the impact of potential terrorist threats;
• Chase – is the action to dismantle or neutralize terrorist initiatives designed or running, and their support networks, preventing the movement and communications and access to finance and usable materials in the terrorist attacks and submit events to the action of justice; and
• Reply – is the operational management of all means to be used in response to terrorist incidents. Responsiveness to limit the consequences of a terrorist act, whether the human level, both in terms of infrastructure.

Under this strategy, the anti-terrorism coordination unit will have the increased powers and is responsible for the coordination and the actions arising from the continued plans.

In order to adjust existing legislation to the Strategy, the Council of Ministers also approved eight bills. The Minister of Justice said that these proposals change:

• The Criminal Procedure Code, updating the definition of terrorism;
• The Nationality Law, densificando the requirements for the granting of nationality by naturalization and for opposing the granting of Portuguese nationality;
• The law establishes the legal regime of covert actions for prevention and criminal investigation;
• The law establishing measures to combat organized, economic and financial crime, to cover all criminal offenses related to terrorism;
• The law to combat terrorism, criminalizing public apology for the crime of terrorism and membership of terrorist organizations;
• The legal system of entry, stay, exit and removal of foreigners from national territory;
• The Organization Law of Criminal Investigation, to cover all criminal offenses related to terrorism; and
• The Internal Security Act, adding skills to the composition of the Higher Internal Security Council and strengthening the organization’s Anti-Terrorist Coordination Unit.

On 22 June 2015 Portugal has amended its Nationality Act by Organic Law 8/2015. Under the amended law, the Public Prosecutor may oppose to a nationality acquisition by marriage or other family relations, if the person who wants to acquire the Portuguese nationality represents a threat to the national security or is involved in terrorist activities. The same applies to acquisition of citizenship via naturalisation where, until now, one could not acquire the Portuguese citizenship if the person was convicted for having especially serious criminal offence. Under the revised law, a person does not acquire the Portuguese citizenship either if he or she represents a threat to the national security or is involved in terrorist activities.

These amendment were adopted by Portugal following the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks and the involvement of Portuguese jihadists in IS, as part of a national strategy to combat terrorism.

The agent was involved in a crowd management operation at the time but reportedly became seperated from his colleagues. A number of men then attacked the agent throwing stones at him and stabbing him three times. A number of people helped save the agent by preventing further attack.

Two persons have been arrested in connection with the attack and the firearm recovered. It is likely that others will be arrested shortly.

Colleagues report that the agent may have been recognized by gang members as he had undertaken anti drug trafficking operations in the area.

Organized by the CIG – Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality / Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the OTSH – Observatory on Trafficking in Human Beings / General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with the support of the Judicial Police, the seminar was held on 25th and 26th June.

This seminar materialized two initiatives at once: on the one hand, the holding of an international conference on trafficking in persons and the new challenges that arise within the EU provided for in the Third National Plan for Prevention and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and secondly, the organization of a final conference in the European project “Towards a Pan-European Monitoring System on Trafficking in Human Beings’, coordinated by the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Affairs MAI / OTSH.

The Criminal Court of Lisbon declared provisional detention for the three suspects detained by the Immigration and Borders Service on June 2nd in the police operation «Livro Mágico» [“Magic Book”]. This operation dismantled a criminal network which ensured – through fraudulent means and in exchange for large amounts of money – the acquisition of Portuguese citizenship to foreign citizens allegedly born in the former Portuguese territories in India.

Fraud used in the acquisition of Portuguese citizenship:

1. The procedure for citizenship acquisition starts with false documents (supposedly) certified by Indian Authorities through «Hague Apostille», a formality used for the international certification of documents.
2. Certified documents (birth certificates or passports) are delivered in the Central Registry Office [Conservatória dos Registos Centrais] of Lisbon, together with the application for acquisition of Portuguese citizenship.
3. Once the citizen acquires Portuguese citizenship, identity cards [cartão de cidadão] and passports are requested at the Portuguese diplomatic representations or in national territory.
4. The identity cards enable these new Portuguese citizens to travel to other countries, such as the United Kingdom, United States of America and Canada, where they take up residence.
5. Given that these citizens do not take up residence in Portugal nor have any family or social tie with the Country, this “phenomenon” does not have visibility in national territory, and for that reason it stays off the radar of national authorities.
6. Portuguese citizenship has also been requested posthumously, i.e. the children of alleged citizens born before 1961 in the former Portuguese territories in India request Portuguese citizenship for their deceased parents, based in documents with no credibility and from which all the descendants also become Portuguese. There are also some doubts regarding the feasibility of documents submitted by those alleged “children of deceased citizens”.
7. There were also several situations of children of the same mother with only two and three months age difference who have obtained Portuguese citizenship.
8. Once the citizenship is acquired, the new “Portuguese citizens” marry with third-country nationals, resulting in the legalisation of the spouse in national territory and acquisition of Portuguese citizenship after three years. The members of the criminal organisation who ensured the acquisition of Portuguese nationality by fraudulent means acted in exchange for large amounts of money. Those residing in Portugal and those who maintained convenience residence also receive social benefits, such as income support allowance [rendimento social de inserção], unemployment or family benefits

The pilot tests of the European Project ‘Smart Borders’ ended on 4th June at Lisbon’s Airport. Portugal was the first Country in Europe who tested this innovative program for entry and departures of Schengen Area.

The Immigration and Borders Service, who manages the Smart Borders Project at national level in cooperation with the eu-LISA agency, will received at Lisbon’s Airport the visit of representatives from thirteen Member States, including Latvia (as EU presidency), European Commission, eu-LISA Agency and General Secretariat of the Council, with the purpose of collecting information regarding the results of the Smart Borders Project.

The tests conducted at the Lisbon’s air border although ended, will start in other Member States’ borders, hence this is a moment of share of knowledge, challenges and final results, given that Portugal was the starting point – on March 15 – of the entire European project.

This project aims at finding the best human and technological solutions for the implementation of a system for controlling the borders’ entries and exits, in Europe, of Third-country citizens, named Entry Exit System (EES). Apart from this, the European Union also wishes to test the viability of the project Registered Traveller Programme (RTP) which will allow border crossing through electronic borders to Third-country nationals, duly registered as frequent flyers.

Electronic borders (Automated Border Control (ABC) eGates) were up to this date only used by European citizens over 18-years old. During the testing period, third-country citizens, in a set of 20 countries, were able to promote the use of their electronic passport and use these devices to exit from the country.

With SEF’s management and the support of ANA/VINCI and Vision-Box®, Portugal conducted at Lisbon’s Airport, three types of tests, not simultaneous, where in addition to the use of electronic borders to exit the country were also tested, at the international arrivals area, the possibility of collection of biometric identifiers (iris, facial image and fingerprints) by using specific kiosks.

We now face ever-changing realities and one of the purposes of this project will be the examination of numbers and facts collected from the several experiences as regards the passenger point of view – foreign citizen, and also the Border Officer point of view, who has the duty to harmonise the need for a swift border control with both national and EU security.

Therefore, Portugal was a pioneer in the implementation of the Smart Borders Project and, as such, will provide a decisive contribution to final conclusions that will be presented to the European institution.

Action Fraud UK has reported that so far in June they have received 533 reports of ticket fraud relating to gigs, concerts and sporting events.

Of the 533 reports, 228 mentioned a company called Circle Tickets which has recently ceased trading online. Circle Tickets was advertising tickets for Taylor Swift, Fleetwood Mac and Ed Sheeran. The 228 reports are with the  UK’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau for analysis and assessment.

Statistics from NFIB show that 33% of crime reports related to ticket fraud in 2014 happened in the months May, June and July. This is largely due to the number of UK festivals and high-profile concerts taking place during these months.

Get Safe Online has recently joined forces with the NFIB and Gumtree to warn you to be careful of ticket fraud at this time of year.

Get Safe Online recommend the following tips to make sure you protect yourself

• Buy tickets only from the venue box office, promoter, official agent or reputable ticket exchange sites.
• Remember that paying by credit card offers greater protection than with other methods in terms of fraud, guarantees and non-delivery.
• Double check all details of your ticket purchase before confirming payment.
• Do not reply to unsolicited emails from sellers you don’t recognise.

• Before entering payment card details on a website, ensure that the link is secure, in three ways:

  1. There should be a padlock symbol in the browser window frame, which appears when you attempt to log in or register. Be sure that the padlock is not on the page itself … this will probably indicate a fraudulent site.
  2. The web address should begin with ‘https://’. The ‘s’ stands for ‘secure’.
  3. If using the latest version of your browser, the address bar or the name of the site owner will turn green.

  Further protection advice

  • Ensure any third-party payment services (such as WorldPay) are secure before you make your payment.
  • Safeguard and remember the password you have chosen for the extra verification services used on some websites, such as Verified by Visa.
  • In the event that you choose to buy tickets from an individual (for example on eBay), never transfer the money directly into their bank account but use a secure payment site such as PayPal, where money is transferred between two electronic accounts.
  • Check sellers’ privacy policy and returns policy.
  • Always log out of sites into which you have logged in or registered details. Simply closing your browser is not enough to ensure privacy.