The prosecution charged Benfica’s SAD, Benfica Estádio, Luís Filipe Vieira, Domingos Soares de Oliveira and four other defendants and a company with crimes of tax fraud and forgery of documents, in the context of the trial called Saco Azul promotes the Emphatically.
The former president of Benfica and Benfica SAD, Luís Filipe Vieira, is charged with three counts of tax fraud and 19 counts of forgery, as well as SAD’s still administrator, Soares de Oliveira, and financial director Miguel Moreira. Benfica SAD and Benfica Estádio are accused of tax fraud.
These entities paid about 1.65 million euros to a small IT consultancy, Questão Flexible, whose owner (José Bernardes) allegedly charged 11 percent of the money received to prepare invoices for fictitious services.
“They were well aware that the invoices of Questão Flexible in favor of the companies Benfica, SAD and Benfica Estádio, SA were not a title for economic operations,” the accuser, quoted by Expresso, alleges.
The public prosecutor understands that this arrangement involved tax evasion (VAT and IRC) of more than 500 thousand euros, which must be paid “jointly” by all defendants.
There are also two other defendants who helped José Bernardes evade the tax authorities with the commission he charged for preparing false invoices.
Saco Azul’s litigation investigation dates back to 2018, when the Tax and Customs Administration warned of excessive invoicing by a computer consultancy. This company and those responsible were already complained. At stake are 1.8 million who have left the accounts of Benfica, SAD, in a period of half a year to pay for services allegedly never provided.
At the time the trial was set in motion, judicial police searched the club, after analyzing documents in an attempt to detect crimes of tax fraud and money laundering. The inquiry sought to understand whether Benfica’s SAD had a blue bag, where the money would be deposited and then incorporated into notes to be used to pay for unaccounted expenses.
This blue bag is said to serve to pay “favors” to third parties, namely football referees, in what could confirm a possible relegation of the club from Luz, if proven in court.
Benfica’s lawyers asked for an archiving, or at least a stay, of the trial in September last year.
Source: DN
