The case revealed this Tuesday, a criminal organization that extorted, threatened and mistreated vulnerable immigrants, involving ten GNR soldiers and a PSP agent, belies the image of the Rule of Law that Portugal proclaims, based on respect for Human Rights, democratic control of force and equality before the law.
And it exposes what is probably the most serious of institutional betrayals: that of public agents who, invested with the duty to protect the most fragile, side with those who exploit them.
The portrait is of a country where control over police action fails, prevention of abuse is insufficient, and the exploitation of immigrants – even with new control policies in place – remains fertile ground for criminal networks, complicit omissions and an economy that prefers not to ask uncomfortable questions.
The descriptions from the Judiciary Police (PJ) are unequivocal: a “mafia-style” group controlled hundreds of foreign workers, most of whom were Indian and in an irregular situation. Through temporary employment companies created on purpose, instead of the promised job, coercion was delivered. Unworthy accommodation and arbitrary expenses were charged, salaries were withheld and, when resistance arose, threats were used, such as the alleged support of corrupt police officers to silence complaints. We are facing organized violence, fueled by human vulnerability and by a chain of responsibilities that has failed across the board.
The Public Ministry reported that the crimes of aiding illegal immigration, human trafficking, active and passive corruption and abuse of power are at stake. The presence of military personnel and agents in this scheme greatly increases the seriousness of the facts. When those who wear the uniform – a symbol of protection and law – stand alongside the exploiters, ethics is no longer just a failure. The very contract of trust that supports the State fails.
And that is why institutional communications from GNR and PSP – despite being important – do not arrive. There is a lack of public, firm and direct word from those most responsible. How is it possible that a case of this scale, with dozens of search warrants, detainees and evidence of systematic abuse, did not deserve a word from the general commander of the GNR, the National director of the PSP? Out of caution? To protect the presumption of innocence? Perhaps. But nothing prevented them from showing their faces and, face to face, in front of the country, especially the community they must protect, from stating categorically that these practices are intolerable. It’s different than hiding behind communications.
Silence, in cases of this enormity, is not prudence. It can be interpreted as a lack of leadership. And where leadership is lacking, distrust grows.
Another question arises: what is failing in the control of police action? Are internal discipline mechanisms failing? Is hierarchical supervision lacking? Is the ability to detect deviant behavior lacking?
IGAI’s Plan for the Prevention of Manifestations of Discrimination was progressing well and should be a pillar in the prevention of this type of abuse, but now little is known about its implementation. And it is also part of the prevention of this type of acts that there is public debate and the ongoing actions and their success indicators are known in a transparent way.
Opacity prevents citizens from understanding whether the State is, in fact, capable of identifying and preventing phenomena of discrimination, abuse of power and collusion of security forces with criminal networks.
It should be remembered that, in 2024, the Beja Court once again sentenced, in legal terms, three former GNR soldiers for crimes committed between 2018 and 2019 against immigrants in Odemira. Two of them received effective sentences of more than eight years in prison. The repetition of these episodes reveals that we are not facing individual deviations, but rather what can already constitute a pattern that is repeated in certain rural areas, associated with migrant vulnerability, lack of scrutiny and an organizational culture that, despite all the advances, is still not immune to permissiveness.
But looking only at the security forces would be too convenient. Because there is another side to this story: employers. Agricultural farms that hire workers at below-market prices. Companies that don’t want to know where these people live, in what conditions they arrive, who controls their documents, who withholds their salaries or threatens them. The properties where workers are found are in unsanitary barracks, without hot water, without contracts and without dignity.
The truth is harsh, but simple: without entrepreneurs willing to profit from almost slave labor, these networks would not prosper. Where is the social conscience of these economic agents? The betrayal is also theirs.
When immigrants in Portugal are forced to beg for food, as happened with some of these workers, it is not only the police and inspection entities, such as the Working Conditions Authority, that fail. It is a complete moral failure, collective inhumanity in its maximum expression. It is worth, at least, the investigation by the Judiciary Police who, once again, did not turn a blind eye.
Portugal likes to present itself as a welcoming country. But practice shows that the State is not protecting those who need it most, that some businesspeople ignore human dignity when this reduces costs, and that some sections of the security forces, although a minority, remain vulnerable to the temptation of corruption and abuse of power.
A State that tolerates vulnerability fails ethically. It fails as a community that wants to be decent and fair.