Fiches Belges

Under the terms of Law 101/2001, of 25 August, undercover operations (actions) are considered to be those carried out by criminal investigation officers or by a third party acting under the control of the Judiciary Police, with concealment of their quality and identity, for the prevention or repression of the crimes of: - murder, as long as the perpetrator is not known; - against sexual freedom and self-determination, punishable with imprisonment for a term of five years or more in abstracto, as long as the perpetrator is not known, or where a person aged 16 or under or other incapable persons are expressly referred to as being aggrieved by the offence; - offences relating to stolen-vehicle forgery or trafficking; - slavery, unlawful detention and kidnapping or hostage-taking; - human trafficking, terrorist organisations, terrorism, international terrorism and financing of terrorism; -unlawful seizure of aircraft, vessel, train or any means of transport by road, or endangering the safety of air, sea or railway goods or passengers, punishable with imprisonment for a term of eight years or more in abstracto; - committed with bombs, grenades, explosive materials or devices, firearms and booby-traps, nuclear, chemical or radioactive weapons; - robbery in credit institutions, tax offices and post offices; - criminal conspiracy; - trafficking in narcotics and psychotropic substances; - Money laundering, other assets or products, corruption, embezzlement and economic participation in business and influence peddling, fraud in obtaining or diverting a subsidy or grant; - economic and financial offences committed in an organised manner or with the use of computer technology ; - economic-financial offences with an international or transnational dimension; - counterfeiting currency, securities, stamp-impressed securities, seals and other similar securities or the passing thereof and relating to the securities market. In addition, undercover actions may also be used to prevent or repress crimes of computer forgery, counterfeiting of cards or use of counterfeit cards, computer damage, computer sabotage, illegitimate access, illegitimate interception, illegitimate reproduction of a protected programme or committed using a computer system, punishable with imprisonenment higher than 5 years,or sexual crimes when the offended persons are underage or incapacitaded people, agravated fraud, computer fraud, racial, gender or religious discrimination, financial infractions, as well as crimes against Author's Rights- under the terms of Article 19 of the Cybercrime Law - Law 109/2009 of 15 September.

Law 101/2001, of 25 August; Article 19 of the Cybercrime Law - Law 109/2009 of 15 September.

The carrying out of undercover action within the scope of the enquiry depends on the prior authorization of the competent Public Prosecutor, which must be communicated to the investigating judge and will be considered validated if a refusal order is not issued within the following seventy-two hours. If the referred action takes place within the scope of criminal prevention, the authorisation is granted by the criminal investigation judge of the Central Criminal Investigation Court, upon proposal by the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Central Department for Investigation and Prosecution.

Portuguese or Spanish (in this case, only for requests from Spain).

N/A

The Portuguese Criminal Police will report the intervention of the official to the competent judicial authority within 48 hours from the end of this intervention. Nobody can be forced to participate in covert actions. Infiltration by a third party (other than a police officer) is possible, as long as his/her activivity is controled by Criminal Police. The competent authority will only order the report to be attached to the investigation file if it is a case of essential evidence. The judge can also determine, as an essential means of evidence, the appearance of the undercover official or third party at the court hearing. At the level of international judicial cooperation, it will be relevant to take into consideration the provisions of art. 41 of Law no. 88/2017, of 21 August, which is the law that approved the legal regime for the issue, transmission, recognition and execution of European investigation decisions in criminal matters and which transposes Directive 2014/41/EU, of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 3.4.2014, which refers the conditions for carrying out covert action to domestic law.