The defendant was arrested on Monday by the Judiciary Police (PJ) and presented to the criminal court of Leiria on Tuesday, but the judicial interrogation was interrupted due to the strike of overtime by the court officials, the same source told Lusa.

The interrogation ended today, with the criminal court judge determining that the defendant, as a measure of coercion, is prohibited from leaving the country, surrendering his passport, and reporting weekly at a police station of the Public Security Police (PSP).

On Tuesday, the PJ announced that it had dismantled a structure that created thousands of computer scams "hello dad, hello mom" and arrested a man suspected of the crimes of qualified fraud, criminal association and money laundering.

In a statement, the PJ explained that following the complaint, received in January, the Leiria Criminal Investigation Department (DIC) carried out inquiries that allowed "identifying coincidences and adding seven more inquiries, noting the massive use of unique mobile phone numbers, from national operators, for the practice of this type of illicit activity, which triggered alerts and forced the use of special means to obtain evidence".

According to the PJ, in addition to the detainee, a 38-year-old foreign citizen, the man's wife and daughter were also named as defendants.

"During the operation, the PJ seized 49 modems, which coupled 32 SIM cards per device, which meant that they operated 1,568 cards simultaneously," said the PJ, noting that "this capacity, at first, allowed the creation of thousands of accounts, mainly on WhatsApp, as well as the sending/receiving of messages in the order of thousands per day, through the 'hello dad, hello mom' fraud and other phenomena of scams in the digital environment".

The PJ clarified that "a repeated pattern was registered with the massive use of thousands of cards, as can be inferred from the seizure of 32 thousand cards already used in criminal practices".

"It was also identified the interaction with third parties, in a network, and evidence was collected of suspects residing in a country in central Europe," said the PJ, adding that "the investigation identified the place where the computer and communications structure was set up, at the detainee's home".

The PJ believes that with this operation it is interrupting "the consummation, in national territory and abroad, of thousands of computer scams".

On the same day, at a press conference at the PJ headquarters in Lisbon, the director of the DIC of Leiria, Avelino Lima, said that the first complaint is of a scam of almost 500 euros, but another scam associated with the investigation amounted to 10 thousand euros.

"In this investigation, seven inquiries have already been added and we are talking about 40 thousand euros of injury to those victims. Almost two dozen more inquiries have already been identified at the PJ alone. All this work will now be complemented with information from other criminal police bodies. There we may have a more concrete dimension and the number of scams will be very high," stressed Avelino Lima.

According to Avelino Lima, "the complexity of these investigations is high, because this is not limited to Portugal".

"We are talking about organized crime, complex and on a global scale," explained Avelino Lima, who also warned of the importance of victims communicating with the authorities more quickly.

The director of the DIC of Leiria also issued a warning to the population to be more attentive to the necessary precautions when interacting with strangers in the digital environment.

According to this PJ official, the suspect had been in national territory since September and obtained his income from this activity.

Read Also: 'Hello dad, hello mom'. Group stole around 40 thousand euros from victims (Portuguese version)