All defendants are liable for criminal association and theft.

Some are also accused of holding a prohibited weapon, counterfeiting and receiving.

In total, 4.7 million Euros were stolen in the various robberies.

The main assault was on Banco Santander, in Braga, and took place on 23 June, 2018, during the night of S. João.

The bank's coffers have been subtracted from monetary amounts and assets with a total value of more than 4 million Euros.

43 customers were affected, but in the meantime the bank has already reached an agreement with most of them, compensating them for the losses suffered.

According to the prosecution, the bank had been under construction since 15 June, 2018, and the armoured door that locked the existing antechamber before the barred door that gives access to private safes remained open until the day of the robbery.

A few days earlier, the bank had authorized one of the defendants to access the private safe zone, thus allowing him to “study” the assault.

The defendant thus realized that the armoured door was open and that the alarm was inactive.

On the day of the crime, and taking advantage of the noise in the street resulting from S. João, he entered the bank, from the back, and, for several hours, sawed the bars and emptied the coffers.

The defendants are also accused of robberies at the residence of businessman Domingos Névoa, popular singer Delfim Júnior and the doctor and former athlete of Sporting Clube de Braga Romeu Maia.

One of the defendants is an agent of the PSP in Ponte de Lima, who allegedly functioned as an informant for the gang.

The prosecution says that the defendants "acted together, like a real group in which they belong, in an organized, concerted and extremely methodical way, sharing information and income among themselves, using the technology that makes close monitoring unfeasible".

It also alludes to the seizure of several walkie-talkies and radio frequency inhibitors and GSM frequencies at home and in vehicles of two of the defendants.

One of the accused would also place GPS equipment on vehicles that he later intended to steal on public roads.

The group's preferred targets were private homes, owned by people with high economic power.

According to the prosecution, the defendants, from November 2017 to the end of June 2018, robbed, or sought to rob, houses in the towns of Braga, Viana do Castelo, Ponte de Lima and Arcos de Valdevez, in addition to the aforementioned bank branch.

Four of the defendants are in preventive detention and one under house arrest, coercive measures justified by the dangers of escape, the continuation of criminal activity and serious disturbance of public order and tranquillity.

The defendants, eight men and one woman, were detained by the GNR in early July 2018, in an operation that included 22 home searches and 15 non-home searches, including some vehicles and a vessel.

The operation resulted in the seizure of 14 cars, about 300 thousand Euros and five kilograms of gold.