Portuguese crimes: The best of the worst crimes of 2010

Crime has these things: not always run smoothly. But sometimes, some criminals put themselves at hand. In the history of Portuguese crimes, 2010 is the year that thieves without driving license risk stealing ambulances, donkey drunk drivers are sentenced, unlucky robbers approach to civil police or rob pharmacies without saying a single word.

Jaime O was not a popular figure in the village of Proença-a-Velha. The neighbors accused him, for example, of stealing animals, which he then raped. On the night of Sept. 19 he was found dying in underwear and women shoes, at the doorstep, having been hit with two blows of a round, metallic object in the chest and anus. He died on the way to the hospital.

At times, James had raped an old woman with 90 years and went to jail. When he left, he got a job in Lisbon as a gravedigger. But he returned to his homeland and, over time, earned the nickname "Jaime Sheep" - because of his fame for raping animals.

At the age of 68, he lives alone, without electricity. Raping animals would be recurrent since childhood and behaviors of James - who became trapped inside a hen house of a neighbor - have been repeatedly discussed at the parish assembly. Some neighbors have even opted to stop raising chickens, due to constant thefts of animals. Was actually the owner of a violated donkey - a retired 50 years man - who killed Jaime O.

The bodies have never appeared, but Francisco Leitao, 41, is in custody and is suspected of murdering three young people. Chico's plane as it was known in the area back then, was headlined in dozens of videos published on the internet, Ghob King, the son of Satan with supernatural powers and ruler of a new era that is coming.

In one video, he announced the world's end to December 21, 2012, accompanied by two of his disciples. King Ghob, scrap dealer by profession, turned the house where he lived, in a place of gorse, a kind of castle, with surveillance cameras installed everywhere, saints, statues, gnomes, giant screens, animal heads, piles of rubble and a space for raising pigs.

For the police, he is suspected of having killed Tania Ramos, Ivo Delgado and Joana Correia, each around their 20 years old. With Ivo he has maintained a relationship. Arrested in July, he does not confess their crimes, he says he is innocent, he has remained silent and the first thing he did when he arrived at the jail was asking for a television. It is known that he is following with great interest all the news published about himself.

Without saying a word and without using any weapon, a man successfully managed to rob six pharmacies - all in Porto area. Man, 37, entered the premises, presented to the employee and handed him a paper with a threatening message in which he said he had a gun and demanded money - hence the nickname of Silent Thief.

Despite never being armed, the man kept his right hand behind his back, so that the employees believed he was in possession of a firearm. But the seventh time the official did not believe. And calmly told him he would only call the Police. That was when the thief decided to runaway. At the door, waiting for him, was as always, a woman - photographer of 39 years - which helped him on the steals, driving a Renault Clio.

The thief, drug addict, always performed between 2p.m and 6p.m and never refrained from wearing sunglasses. It was only betrayed by the images captured by surveillance cameras on seventh pharmacy. He was arrested in August, close to home, along with an accomplice - who, after all, was his girlfriend.

A man came a month ago, at the firehouse firefighters of a city, around 20:30PM, and stole a parked ambulance - which usually has it's doors unlocked and keys in the ignition to facilitate the departure, if necessary to respond to any emergency.

Firefighters who were on duty became aware of the thief when the ambulance crashed into the gate of the barracks. Then, sitting behind the wheel of the car, the man drove wrong lane where he eventually crash into two parked cars. Still tried to flee on foot but was caught a few minutes after leaving the barracks. 

"He was upset, it seemed that he didn't know what he was doing or what he was saying, but still managed to steal the ambulance," said a witness who did not identify to the newspaper. The story did not have a happy ending for the ambulance and both cars parked on the street - which ended up dented. The man, drug addict, had no driving license.

The illegal slaughterhouse was dismantled in September when ASAE arrived at around 9.30am on the 25th, where several customers were already lined up to buy meat.


But this was not any one slaughterhouse. The carcasses were tossed into a field near the freeway, or a stream. Others were buried. But according to one newspaper, the slaughterhouse had another particularity. In addition to selling meat, during the slaughtering, it was also allowed customers to pay to see performed rituals of sacrifice, "in which the prayers were not lacking."


And there's more: Whoever targeted the slaughterhouse proving meat would usually fool costumers. For instance, instead of beef, customers took, without knowing it, horse meat. Authorities found there ten horses, 20 goats and 40 pigs, ducks and chickens. The owner stood on the run, but was made defendant, along with an employee. The animals were inanimate with hammer blows to the head and then stab the dead without hygiene and safety.

He was enjoying a probation from prison but was re-arrested, on Christmas Day, after attempting to steal a car. The robber, a man of 28 years old, was unlucky. The attempted robbery happened in a parking lot, where cars tend to be seized by the Police and some cars are of agents working in a nearby police station.

Around 6:30 am, two policemen finished their shifts, then agree to go in the same car to home, so therefore they took off their uniforms and went to the parking lot. Once one of the officers entered the car, appeared the thief - with one hand in his pocket, saying he was carrying a gun and threatening him with a shot, if they wouldn't hand over the vehicle. But another agent of the Police - who was about to enter the place of the hanging - struck the thief from behind with a service pistol and identified themselves as policemen.

However, other agents arrived, coming from the station, which is only a few feet away. Amid the uproar, the burglar fell and was injured. He was hospitalized but not even being injured could save him from being presented in court. He returned to jail where he was serving before and where he only got out to spend Christmas with his family.

The method is easy to explain. First, you need to steal a backhoe, which is extracted with the ATM from the wall. Then, preferably with the paddle of the machine, the ATM is deposited in a truck stolen. Then just run away. In January, the gang stole a backhoe and raided an ATM a few feet away, a branch of Barclays Bank.


It was not the first attack of this kind, neither would it be the last. In February, the same group attacked an ATM installed in the wall of a supermarket. In May, another assault, this time at a petrol station in Albufeira.


In October, the gang of the backhoe strucked again in the town of Santiago in Odemira, around four o'clock. The neighbors heard the noise, but thought it was the garbage truck. In November, another assault, this time in a service area of an highway. That precise month, the gang tried to steal an ATM in a building in Loulé, but missed the target and only hit the front, destroying it.

A homeless couple decided to have sex in a street, about three o'clock, and were eventually beaten by a group of people upset by the behavior of the young couple.

The scene of the brawl was filmed and the video fell onto the internet. Besides being available on YouTube, has come to circulate through social networks. According a newspaper the couple was already half naked when they were called to attention by a woman who was out with a minor child. Instead of dressing, the couple tried to confront the woman, who was protected by several people passing by.


The confusion only ended when the yougers decided to flee after the Police was called. "We called the police but they had already escaped. They were afraid to get more punches. It is a shame to have sex on a street like this, where hundreds of families walk around with children" explained Fernando Silva, a street vendor. "I was working in the bakery when I realized the confusion. They were drunk on the floor and grabbed a stick as if they would hit someone when the beatings started," said Ana Martinez, an employee of the bakery empire.

The deal was arranged. Six men and one woman, aged between 23 and 65, were found to do, according to the Police, "a transaction of a significant amount of counterfeit notes." By the scheduled time, neither the vendors or the buyers had brought the counterfeits notes or the money to buy them. Who also wished to be present at the meeting were the Policemen, who identified the group at the exact moment the transaction would begin.


The case happened earlier this month in the district of Viseu and ended with the arrest of a man of 23 years old and a woman of 30 years old, besides the identification of the remaining five elements in place for illegal possession of weapons - once there was no false money, and it wasn't achieved any kind of business.


According to some Policemen, who dealt with the case, the intent of the sellers would only be to take ownership of the previously agreed price, if necessary applying force. Also willing to apply force would be the buyers, who wanted to misappropriate the fake money.

"I can stop driving the donkey, but not of drinking wine" a farmer told to the newspaper, after being arrested in August by the Police. Jorge Rodrigues, 34, was caught by the military leading a donkey while drunk.

Once he had blown into the balloon and charged a fee of 3.26 grams of alcohol per liter of blood, the man had to tie his donkey to a tree in order to go with the Policemen to the Police Station. He was then released and returned home to his wife to be judged. When he was in trial in September, George released a further outburst: "If I go to jail, I will drink all the wine available" Even so, the court had no pity and forced him to pay a fine of 250 euros.


In addition, the farmer was banned from driving motor vehicles for four months and received two fines for breaches of traffic regulations. One for not bringing a light on the wagon, another by driving in the wrong lane. As he doesn't own money, Jorge Rodrigues will do community work. At the end of the sentencing, he said he was open to any type of work. "apart from the graveyard" he warned.