Much has been written and speculated about the €75,800 that was found on a shelf in the office of Vitor Escaría, Antonio Costa’s chief of staff, and one of the suspects in the famous “influencer operation”. After all, As it turns out, the money, for now, has nothing to do with the alleged corruption scheme that led to the fall of the Socialist Party government on November 7, 2023.
Lawyer Tiago Rodríguez Bastos, defending Escaría in this case, revealed that 75,800 euros had been seized at the client’s office in São Bento. It is a “side fact” and “completely unrelated” to what is at stake in this case. The seized funds are in fact due to previous activitysupposedly obtained in Angola, said Vitor Escaría.
After Cristina Ferreira urged him to talk about the topic on the program “Dois à 10”, on TVI, former Prime Minister António Costa also downplayed the topic and put a stone over it: “That money had nothing to do with this operation. Regarding this operation, I am also convinced that Professor Vitor Escaría did not do anything wrong. I do not know the operation Therefore, I cannot guarantee that, but it is my belief.”
“For the rest, I said what I had to say in the statement I made on the following Saturday, when I tendered my resignation on the 7th of this month, I did not know about the existence of this money, and the money was not found […] But this was clearly a serious breach of trust Regarding my chief of staff,” confirms the current commentator for the News Now channel, affiliated with the Medialivre group.
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