Missing gold from Porto PJ: businessman claims 50 kg and demands €2.6 million from State
A court confirmed the theft of 5.6 kg of gold from Porto PJ, but businessman José Pinho insists that 50 kg disappeared and is demanding €2.6 million in compensation from the State.
Gold theft at Porto PJ divides court and owner of pieces
CNN Portugal reveals that José Pinho, a businessman in the pawn sector, is demanding €2.6 million in compensation from the State, claiming that the Judicial Police returned to him in 2021 only 37 of the 87 kilograms of gold he expected to recover — gold that had been seized in 2013 as part of a major judicial process.
What has been proven in court is more limited: a judgment from the Judicial Court of the Porto District, dated 2018, established as proven the theft of 5.6 kilograms of gold from the Porto PJ premises between 2014 and 2016. An employee of the institution and her then partner were convicted. Most of that gold belonged to José Pinho himself.
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The employee who confessed — but not to everything
From her first statement before the Public Prosecution Service to the trial, the employee repeatedly confessed to stealing gold and apologised emotionally. However, she consistently insisted that she was not responsible for everything she was accused of.
In tears, she told the court: "I ended up taking some things, but not everything they say, because I've already said I didn't take everything, but anyway, some things that disappeared, the ones that are there... I'm very sorry, I've already apologised to everyone."
Her former partner, initially resistant, also eventually confessed, but with the same caveat: "Not even half of what the judge read reached my hands."
The employee justified the thefts by citing financial difficulties, debts and her son's illness. She also said her partner pressured her, arguing that other colleagues did the same: "He said I was very stupid for not taking advantage because the others did it there, why didn't I do it too?"
The scheme operated as follows: the employee removed pieces from the Porto PJ safe — having been filmed by a surveillance camera — and handed them to her partner, who sold them in a shop in Ermesinde, on the outskirts of Porto.
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Eight years later, the employee is not surprised by the 50 kilograms
The TVI Exclusive, from the same group as CNN Portugal, consulted the case tried in 2018 and confronted the former employee — who by then had left the PJ — with the 50 kilograms claimed by José Pinho. The woman refused to give an interview, but showed no surprise at the amount. She added that she felt she had been made a scapegoat and that she had been pressured into accepting responsibility for the 5.6 kilograms given as stolen in the judgment.
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The businessman who only learned of the theft when he claimed his gold
José Pinho was convicted in 2020 in the major judicial process initiated following searches by the PJ and the Tax Authority at various pawn sector companies. At the end of that trial, the court ordered the return of the gold seized seven years earlier. According to Pinho, he only learned of the theft committed by the PJ employee after, in 2020, he requested the return of the pieces — and received less than he expected.
The businessman also disputes the way the PJ inventoried the gold when it was seized in 2013: "They never weighed it and never described it," he states.
In 2021, José Pinho filed a civil lawsuit against the State. The case has been suspended since October 2023 in the Administrative Court of Lisbon, awaiting a decision from a higher court on procedural matters.
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PJ admits shortcomings, but does not respond publicly
In the response sent to court in 2020, following Pinho's initial complaint, the Judicial Police explained that they had heard the inspectors involved, admitted that many pieces had not been weighed and acknowledged having no answers to several of the questions raised. The institution wrote that "it becomes clear that an analysis of all proceedings, possibly carried out by those most directly involved in the investigation, would make it possible to clarify many of the doubts about the whereabouts of the said objects".
In the 2021 court action, Pinho requested the hearing of 21 PJ inspectors, seven tax inspectors and Judge Carlos Alexandre, who was involved in the initial phase of the process that led to the seizure of the gold.
When questioned by the TVI Exclusive, the PJ stated that it is not its role to "produce any public comment on complaints or actions brought before courts", committing itself to providing clarification to the competent authorities.
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"It will be the State that pays, it's all of us"
In the 2018 judgment, the employee and her former partner were ordered to pay the State €180,000 in compensation for the estimated value of the stolen pieces. José Pinho says he never received any amount, nor was he informed of the theft before he complained about the disappearance.
Parente Ribeiro, the businessman's lawyer, argues that the State must "obviously" respond for the gold that was in the care of the PJ. "The criminal police authority had all that gold in its care and allowed it to be stolen," he argues. "My client wants to know where the gold is. It will be the State that pays, it's all of us."
With the price of gold on international markets having risen considerably, the 50 kilograms claimed by Pinho would be worth approximately €6 million today, according to the businessman himself, who worked in the sector for decades.
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The question that justice still has to settle
The court will now have to determine whether only the 5.6 kilograms already established as proven in a final judgment disappeared from Porto PJ — or the 50 kilograms that José Pinho insists he never recovered, for which he is claiming €2.6 million in compensation from the Portuguese State.
Source: CNN Portugal