Police officers who exchanged passes with money try to kill … – publico

                 
                 

 
                         

A few dozen policemen, who for years moved away from the transport passes that paid them the Public Security Police (PSP) for money, are trying to erase the trail of fraud asking duplicates of these tickets.

                     

                         The aim is to hide the fact that for a long time do not use the passes, information that is recorded in the card’s chip. Several agents claimed to have lost the ticket to require duplicate, while others are asking for the pass Lisboa Viva for the first time since it never had.

As the PUBLIC reported in May, the scam provided the police many of the districts of Setúbal, Almada and Seixal a salary supplement. Every month they delivered the pass request to them was provided by the PSP at the box office of Transportes Sul do Tejo (TST) in Cacilhas, whose employees the exchanged not for loading of tickets, as was supposed, but for money, winning this transaction a commission. If by 109 euros, for example, paid 89, keeping 20 for himself. All profited. – Except the coffers of the PSP, ie the public purse

Following the disclosure of this scam, prosecutors launched a investigation and the PSP, in turn, open parallel proceedings of inquiries. The case also raised the attention of the police call the police, the General Inspectorate of Internal Administration, which tracks the efforts taking place within the corporation to ascertain what has happened in recent years through the National PSP direction.

The fraud include at least one other carrier in the metropolitan area of ​​Lisbon and is also practiced in the metropolitan area of ​​Porto, although with different contours. Here, it is common practice for agents carry the family passes or neighbors, using the requests that were to upload your. PUBLIC questioned by the national leadership of the PSP said it did not trigger any process of investigation in Porto. They will, however, be scrutinized possible weaknesses of the system passes requests. Both police officers as the GNR receive free passes to a limit of 50 kilometers of distance between your residence and the workplace.

Instead of the exonerating, the attempt by the margin of police South delete the track of the fraud may end up compromising them even more: shipments of passes are recorded in the respective operators, and not just in the passenger card chip, which means it will be easier for the authorities who are investigating the If realize that transport tickets or have not been uploaded regularly.

For the Unified Union of Police, the exchange of shipments of passes for money is perfectly legal. “There is no fraud or any wrongdoing. It’s like going shopping with password meal: the state is not injured, “he argued the leader of the union, Peixoto Rodrigues. But that was not the understanding of the prosecution, to open the inquiry.