2.4 The Story of Alcochete: The Insanity Project

To recap the last post we introduced you to Occam's razor. The principle that the simplest answer is often in fact the correct answer. We looked at the drugs found in the raid and questioned what those meant in relation to Nuno Mendes and the charges of drug trafficking. Was there any solid evidence of this? The question here as always being is there something we're missing?  Because using Occam’s razor it's a bit leap from Mustafá claiming that the drugs belonged to the caretaker of Casinha, Jójó and the GNR and the prosecutor Cândida Vilar charging him with drug trafficking when they cannot even present evidence to the court and the judge that the 15g of cocaine and 3g of hashish found were even Mustafá's. So guess what missing blanks we're going to be filling out on today's crossword puzzle?

We'll start with one down…

On November 11th, 2018 at 8pm at the Estádio José Alvalade the match between Sporting CP and GD Chaves was just kicking off in front of a sparse crowd of 20,539 people. Bas Dost (who else) gives the lions the lead on 21 minutes. They're all set for 3 points when Nittinho makes it 1-1 ten minutes before time, this despite them having gone down to ten men in the 70th minute. However Bas Dost converted a penalty 5 minutes before the end of the 90 to give the home side all 3 points with a 2-1 win. One man not in attendance was Nuno Mendes and whilst the stands were largely empty, outside the stadium there was a huge presence of officers who were stationed outside the Casinha, headquarters of the Juve Leo. In the last series we told you how both Bruno de Carvalho and Nuno Mendes had been arrested on the same day. What the report I was basing the post on failed to mention was a rather critical piece of information, namely that the arrest of Nuno Mendes came before this game and the searches on Casinha actually took place whilst the game was being played a few feet away. As I keep saying, if you don't know you should be looking for something, how are you ever going to know you've missed it?

According to reports in the Record at about 7pm, around an hour prior to the game kicking off, a perimeter had been established with approximately 10 vans from the Special Police Unit and about fifty agents and spotters, some armed with shotguns. Five agents are stationed at the entrance to the headquarters. It's also noted that members of the Juve Leo had gathered at the location whilst searches had began inside.

Normally I'd be thinking having a large armed presence outside a football match and conducting a search of the premises whilst a game was going on was somewhat surprising but after weeks of research, nothing now really surprises me in connection with this entire affair if I'm being honest. Portuguese football and Sporting Clube de Portugal and their relationship with the Claques does not follow the pattern you'd find in the majority of other countries. It certainly doesn't happen in England where I live and have grown up. If the wind changes my raised eyebrows will be permanently locked into place. Now if we rewind we know what they found during the search; 15g of cocaine and 3g of hashish. Been there, seen it, got the T-shirt thank you very much. Plus we've concluded that actually it doesn't add up to drug trafficking plus there's no evidence that the drugs found can have their ownership attributed to Nuno Mendes but maybe now we can fill in some of the missing blanks. Or maybe like all these posts we might just add more questions and less answers. I guess we're about to find out. 

Okay so a new critical piece of information: According to CMTV, the police stated that the searches at the Juve Leo headquarters were due to alleged drug trafficking. The search for narcotics is based on suspicions following reports from those detained in the case of the attack on the Academy.

Someone's being telling tales whilst in custody. What does that mean exactly? Well, someone arrested after the attacks has for reasons unknown decided to imply that specifically on matchdays at the Estádio José Alvalade that drugs are readily available for purchase. Why would anyone possibly do that? Remember those whispers circulating that defendants were trying to get a more lenient sentence for turning states evidence? I mean there's no actual of the claims made but someone has clearly planted the thought into someone's mind and allowed it to germinate long enough that the best part of six months after the attack, arrest warrants were issued for both men and searches conducted on homes and on Casinha. 

So we know the GNR are present and that the searches took place with Mustafá in attendance. He's taken away at 9.24 and was probably in the back of a police van when a huge cheer went up as Chaves went down to ten men. As if his evening didn't feel surreal enough. This did however follow a cheer from those Juve Leo members still in attendance outside the ground rather than watching the game inside presumably as a show of solidarity. Maybe they hadn't been given their tickets before the raid was done? Oh no sad times. I hope they at least told Mustafá the score at full-time. 

The Observador reports that both Bruno de Carvalho and Mustafá were both arrested, the latter specifically because of the suspicions of drug trafficking aimed at Juve Leo and not because of the Alcochete attacks. But they both had to be done in unison with one another. The theory being to arrest one would have potentially alerted the other to take flight and disturbance of the investigation which I took to read potentially getting rid of evidence but as I alluded to in the first series you weren't likely to have been stupid enough to leave anything lying around that links you to certain things anyway. Well you wouldn't have thought so anyway but you never know but given it's six months past let's assume on this matter alone I'm correct. Oh go on…please?

The case put forward is that the Justice suspects that it's the sale of tickets by Juve Leo for Sporting matches that is used to finance the alleged drug trafficking. 

Yes you read that right. The implications here are that Bruno de Carvalho as the Clube President of Sporting Clube de Portugal, one of Os Três Grandes, Portugal's three largest football clubs, provides the largest and oldest Claques the Juve Leo with free match tickets, which they in turn sell, to fund a drug trafficking operation. And so on November 11th, 2018 they've gone in hoping to catch them red handed in action at Casinha on a matchday.

I've already admitted I'm no expert in how drugs are dealt but I do know enough about attending football matches and what goes on, on a matchday. If you've got your own supporters headquarters with a bar inside the Estádio José Alvalade you're not going to be drinking in the bars around Lisboa before the game if you're a member. Some might arrive as early as 5pm, a large element around 6pm and generally the place is likely to be packed for all home games. And we know that here tickets are being sold to members for the game so presumably they all turn up at Casinha to collect their matchday tickets. So yes you can argue that you've got a large potential clientele inside your premises, some of whom might like a little bump to take the edge off some bad football being played on the pitch that season. Yet as we've mentioned many times before there's two key factors to consider here from the off. The Casinha is in the Estádio José Alvalade and on a matchday I'm going to assume there's rather a large police presence and those officers are going to be armed in addition. Not because of football by the way, because as we ascertained in the first series Portuguese officers are armed. I've stood on the platform of a train station with two armed officers behind me and I can tell you I acted like a fucking saint that morning. If I was a drug dealer, one I wouldn't have the cocaine in a vials, I'd have it in wraps and if I had people dealing for me on a matchday you can bet your bollocks to a barn door that they wouldn't be anywhere near the vicinity of a heightened police presence. It doesn't fucking stack up. The levels of stupidity for it to be true would have to be immense. Yes, just like the levels from those who carried out the attacks at Alcochete admittedly which I know means that there are stupid people about but come on, really? Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there are only club stewards around. I'd argue that a club who had it's players attacked by it's own fans just six months prior would probably now warrant a police presence on matchday. We know from the first series that the PSP use spotters. We also know there's a serious rise in incidents of violence at football matches from the reports we referenced. If it looks like bullshit, smells like bullshit, then guess what? 

So who is behind the theory? Come on ladies and gentlemen, roll up, roll up, place your bets… Yes or course it is, it's our old friend, the Prosecutor Cândida Vilar. Quelle fucking surprise to discover that she's the one who suspects that drug trafficking was not only financed with the sale of tickets for Sporting's matches, but that the peak in the purchase and sale of narcotics would take place before and during Sporting matches at the Estádio José Alvalade from Casinha. 

Maybe she's right, maybe it did happen? Maybe she was really unfortunate that they chose a Sunday night game that the world and his wife stayed away from and what usually went on simply didn't occur on that day. Why would they have chosen that game? Presumably because of that same reason ironically enough, because if you had 50,000 people in attendance around the ground you have to imagine the size of the force needed to have formed a perimeter would have been tenfold with a much higher cost to the budget and a much higher risk of sections of members or fans in general showing their displeasure. Remember what 1312 stands for? All cops are bastards. That's a universally recognised system from fans worldwide. There's an awful lot of fans who don't like the police and even 100 armed officers against a potential mob of thousands isn't great maths for them. So little old Chaves it was then, it's not like they'd have travelled with thousands of their fans in attendance.

It certainly does read like the perfect vanity project as I've alluded to in my previous posts. She's forged her reputation going after the people at the top of organisations after all. By the end of it all, it will feel like an insanity project rather than a vanity project. The reason they can conduct these searches on a Sunday and at night is because she has got the judge to agree to try all defendants in the case on charges of terrorism which allows her to use special measures that wouldn't have been available to her had she not used them. 

So normally the searches would have been carried out sometime during a weekday. The Public Prosecutor's Office, with the authorisation of Judge Carlos Delca agreed to move forward the searches to the matchday. Vilar and the GNR were looking for as much information and evidence as possible to try put the case together to link the sale of tickets to drug trafficking. 

So the first question is, was there any truth behind the claims that the Juve Leo received tickets from the club? Actually yes there is. An arrangement was in place. At the time Bruno de Carvalho was in charge it was common practice for not only home games but away games to for the Juve Leo to receive free tickets for the games. I don't know if that extended to all four main supporters groups but there's no reason to assume that it wouldn't have been the case. If you're entitled to free tickets then in theory you'd make a considerable profit from their sale. The suggestion then being that those funds were used to finance a drug trafficking operation. 

The Observador article notes for away matches it's common place for the Juve Leo to have sold tickets 24 to 48 hours before but for home games it's common practice for the overwhelming majority of tickets to be sold on match day. So that proves my theory stated previously above. Thank Christ I'm not as daft as I've allowed myself to believe at times during the past two series. Again it's alleged that the peak of the drug operation happens on matchdays at home.   

Let's throw in the legal definition of terrorism in Portugal because I'm not sure I've added it anywhere in the previous posts before:

The law says that a "terrorist group, organization or association (...) of two or more persons (...)" is defined not only as aiming to "harm national integrity and independence, prevent, alter or subvert the functioning of the State institutions provided for in the Constitution", but also as aimed at "intimidating certain persons, groups of persons or the population in general", namely in "crime against the life, physical integrity or freedom of persons", among other crimes.

So there you go. 

Now we've already ascertained that the case against Mustafá for drug trafficking was later dropped and he was released on remand. But the question remains what was the deal with the club at the time in regards to tickets and what happened with the money that was made? For once I can provide you with the answer and it came from Nuno Mendes himself. I have no reason to believe that what follows isn't accurate.

The total number of tickets provided by the club for home games was 480. Those were sold €15. For a game like the Dérbi de Lisboa he'd expect to sell in the region of 1,000 tickets. The remaining tickets needed are brought at a discounted rate. 

That's not a typo for the price of a Matchday ticket for the Dérbi de Lisboa. Yes for the biggest game in Portugal you could if you were a member attend for €15. I have tickets from the early 1990s from Division Two games where the adult face value shown is £14/15 and that would have been against some tin pot opponent. Far me it for me to suggest that Benfica are a tin pot club when they're the largest and best supported club in the country but if you'd like to do it then I'm not stopping you. Depending on the game in London you could have been paying eight years ago maybe £60 or £70 which could now be nearer £90-100 in certain sections for say a North London Dérbi between Spurs and Arsenal.

Now those of you who are really observant may have noticed in the first series that despite Nuno Mendes being accused of being one of the three moral authors behind the Alcochete attacks I didn't include his testimony. If you did notice it you might have thought it odd or just assumed I'd not found it because of my lack of Portuguese which was a huge possibility so you could have been right. Truth is I had it, wrote it all up whilst offline, clicked out the file to update something else and inadvertently lost the file I'd been working on for two hours and couldn't recover it. A combination of being severely fucked off at my own stupidity, plus an hour trying to recover it and then continuing with other parts meant I've never gotten around to it again so I'll introduce it all here in this new series instead and if I'm really kind I might have cross referenced it. By kind I mean if I have remembered to do it which I probably won't have done so apologies in advance. 

So when he gives testimony to the courts on December 4th the judge wants to establish the finer details of his life, what being the leader of the Juve Leo entails and how he makes his living. If you've read every post to date, firstly well done, secondly you'll recall the post where I explained the differences between a traditional hooligan firm and an ultra group of fans found on the continents. In a firm you don't make money from it, you just went on a Matchday to have a tear up. Here though being the leader of the Juve Leo is actually Mustafá's job. Say what? I know right. Just when you thought I was out of surprises for you all and yes fine, even I was surprised to learn that one, you got me fully banged to rights there unlike Cândida Vilar ever did with her choices for the moral authorship of the attacks. 

He states that he receives a salary of €2,000 a month (net) and confirms that's his only income. Not only that but his wife gets an additional €800 a month for running the bar and the tickets and merchandise of the Juve Leo. He lives in Aroeira with his wife and daughter. He has a son from a previous relationship who lives with his mother. He pays €600 a month rent, €400 a month for his BMW 535 and pays €600 a month to send both his kids to private schools. Yes, that's right the man the GNR officer specifically made a point of telling the court he knew who the man nicknamed terror was, is the type of man who would not only have stopped the attacks had he been aware, or present, but also the type of man who wants his kids to have a private education. If I could speak Portuguese maybe the Juve Leo would like to hire me as their press officer?

He confirms for the judge that the Associação Juventude Leonina doesn't pay rent for Casinha. They keep the profits for the bar, an average barrel will earn them €120 in profit and if they sell 30 barrels a week it's €3,600 cleared. That was Judge Pires' maths by the way. 

Nuno Mendes confirms that in relation to the tickets the agreement is a long-standing one with grandfather rights carried over from one club president to the next. OK that's my term by the way just to make it clear. He lists them for the judge “Soares, Franco, Bettencourt, Godinho…”

There are the 480 free tickets from the supporter's club protocol. If they need extra tickets they buy them for €11 and sell them for €15. Crucially for games where he might only sell 250 tickets he just returns those he doesn't need at no cost to the association. 

Now if you're thinking this sounds like a proper cushy number, and a right little earner you'd need to know about Portuguese football and in particular the fines that get levelled out to the clubs for misdemeanours every single game. It's my new obsession or it will be when I've finished this series. The commission behind it love handing out fines. Honestly whoever does the reporting on a matchday really, really is a jobsworth and you've never seen anything like it. You've fines relating to player behaviour, fans behaviour, the Tannoy announcers get fined, you can get fined for standing in the wrong place, it is incredible. But at Sporting owing to the fans poor history of behaviour the agreement is now in place that the claques have to pay the fines that relate to their behaviour, some of which are incredibly costly indeed. So when you see reports that clubs have been fined tens of thousands in European matches for pyrotechnic displays, it turns out the clubs are not fitting the bill for them, they're invoicing the claques. Well in the case of Sporting CP and the Juve Leo in any case. Technically they're subsidising them in part by free rent, free tickets and discounted tickets in turn, but when a flare is thrown onto the pitch, back in 2018 that came with a fine of €12,000 and if it was from your supporters group, you picked up that tab. So next time you watch a game and firecrackers go off know they're covered by the supporters protocol too and the claques are covering the cost. Thankfully we rarely see flares thrown onto the pitch as we did in the vicinity of Rui Patrício way back in early 2018 for the Dérbi de Lisboa. Presumably that was an expensive night for the claques.

So there you have it, the real answer of where the money made by sales of matchday tickets was going. One to pay for his salary and two on fines for behaviour of the Juve Leo members. Not as it transpires on funding a drug trafficking operation. Surprising turn of revelations there don't you think seeing as Vilar had done so well with the remainder of the prosecution? I am of course being ironic there in case your claxon didn't sound. Rumour has it she was given a nice gentle shove into retirement by the way which doesn't surprise me at all. So incredibly we have drawn a line under one part of the case. I don't think we left any unanswered questions and if you have any please keep them to yourself and don't write them in the comments section below.

In our next post, not for the first time we fall down a rabbit hole. Just how far fetched were Cândida Vilar's suggestions in regards to a football club and organised crime and can we find any similar examples whereby it actually occured? You can probably guess the answer to that one in advance. Plus we'll be looking at the role of the flares being thrown onto the pitch during the Dérbi de Lisboa and where claims associated with that incident fit into the grand scale of things.