At the Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon, police detained a man with more than 350 passports from Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony in Africa, CM TV reported on Saturday.
According to police findings so far, the detainee may be a member of one of the criminal groups trying to legalize the stay of immigrants in Portugal without valid documents.
Investigators confirmed that all passports found in the luggage of the detained Guinea-Bissau citizen are original documents.
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The case is being handled by three units of the Portuguese security services, the Lisbon station reported. It added that the detained man has already been charged with smuggling state documents.
Portugal, with a population of over 10 million, has been struggling with a mass influx of illegal immigrants for several years. In total, around half a million people in the country have an unregulated legal situation.
In early May this year, the government of Prime Minister Luis Montenegro announced that it would deport at least 4,500 illegal immigrants by June.
From Lisbon Marcin Zatyka (PAP)
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