The director of the Funchal Customs Office, João Paulo Matias, was reportedly the target of searches carried out this Tuesday by the Judiciary Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, with a prosecutor present, “under suspicion of economic participation in a business deal and personal favoritism towards his own wife,” according to CNN Portugal.
According to the same source, the tax inspector, who has held the highest customs position in the Madeira archipelago for over a decade, “should now be suspended from his duties” as part of an ongoing investigation into allegedly “granting and maintaining an undue subsidy to his wife, who is a tax official and reports to him.”
CNN Portugal adds that “the improper allocation was the subject of a complaint, which led to an opinion indicating that the subsidy was undue and should be withdrawn.” However, “years have passed and João Paulo Matias never withdrew it from his wife, thus incurring the crimes for which he will now have to answer.”
Jornal Madeira sought confirmation of the searches from the director of the Madeira Criminal Investigation Department of the Judicial Police, José Matos, who did not confirm the information. In a telephone conversation with the Funchal Customs office, an employee to whom the call was transferred said she could not confirm anything about the information released this afternoon by CNN.