Portugal's Polícia Judiciária arrested a 58-year-old lawyer in Odivelas this week, accusing him of siphoning roughly €1.2 million from 33 foreign clients between 2023 and March 2026. According to the PJ's National Anti-Corruption Unit, the lawyer gained access to his clients' bank accounts, all foreign nationals seeking Autorização de Residência para Investimento, Portugal's Golden Visa, by telling them he needed the funds to speed up their applications, then moved the money into his own accounts and spent it. He faces charges of aggravated fraud, breach of trust and money laundering, and was due in court today for his first judicial interrogation. Investigators say the victim count could still grow.

This is at least the third distinct fraud scheme involving Golden Visa investors that Portuguese authorities have investigated in recent years.

This has happened before

In 2018, prosecutors charged lawyer Maria Antónia Cameira with a scheme against mostly Brazilian, South African and Chinese clients: her firm took custody of funds clients had entrusted to it for property purchases tied to their Golden Visa applications, and she allegedly kept the money instead, a different mechanism from the Odivelas case's alleged unauthorized account access, but the same underlying betrayal of a client's trust in their lawyer. She'd already been convicted in the UK for embezzling a client's funds at a London law office she ran, years before the Portuguese case even reached court.

Then in March, "Operação Chave Dourada" produced a related but different scheme: eight people arrested for fraudulently selling homes belonging to Golden Visa holders who lived abroad and rarely visited their own properties. Forged identity documents and powers of attorney were used to transfer ownership to fictitious buyers, paperwork that had to pass through real lawyers and solicitors for authentication along the way. Police recovered around €1.5 million in frozen assets; that investigation continues.

What's worth knowing if you're going through this process
  • The publicly documented Golden Visa process does not require applicants to give lawyers direct access to their bank accounts.
  • You can verify any Portuguese lawyer's registration with the Ordem dos Advogados before engaging them.
  • A lawyer offering to "speed up" the process for an informal, off-the-books payment is a red flag on its own.
  • Keep any investment or fee payments documented and tied to a specific, written purpose.