According to a note on the page of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) of the Lisbon District – without mentioning the name, but stating the case number assigned to the case of the defendant, known as “King of Vacuum Cleaners” -, the Investigating judge confirmed the accusation of the Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DIAP) in Lisbon. Schmelz will answer for 21 crimes of resorting to heavy prostitution of minors and five crimes of seducing minors for sexual purposes.
“The investigating judge also ordered the issuance of national, European and international arrest/arrest warrants to subject the suspect to a preliminary interrogation and application of coercive measures”, can be read in the statement.
Recalling that the facts of this case took place between 2018 and 2019, the MP states that the German citizen took advantage of the “high socio-economic status he had” to “seduce young people under the age of 18 to have sex with him in exchange for amounts between 200 and 400 euros”, with the crimes taking place in a hotel in Lisbon and in the house he had in Cascais.
“In order to take advantage of these practices with young people he did not know, he offered the large sums of money not only to the minor who offered him a new young wife, but also to the minor with whom it was accompanied,” it says. MEP too, noting that in the investigative phase (previous phase where the judge assesses whether the evidence is strong enough for a judgement) the suspect “has not questioned the evidence collected in the investigative phase”.
According to the May 2022 indictment order, on November 13, 2019, Mattias Schmelz “began to flee Portuguese territory”, following news published in the media even during the investigation of the MP, and first moved to Madrid in a transport vehicle via the electronic Uber platform and then traveled “in a way that is not concretely established”, to South Africa and finally to Dubai.
Source: DN
