Alves dos Reis remains an icon emblematic of fraud in Portugal, having orchestrated a daring counterfeiting of escudo bills and attempted the purchase of the Banco de Portugal. Let's delve into this extraordinary saga and explore the captivating details of his fraudulent activities.
Alves dos Reis: Portugal's greatest escrot
Many will say that the Alves dos Reis coup can in no way be compared to the scams we hear about these days. That's certainly true, but it's not the value of the scam that's at stake in this story. It's the audacity of a man who came up with a plan that could only work. In truth, the end of this story is not the most glorious: the scam has been uncovered and the punishment for the offence has been meted out.
What better way than to delve into the fantastic story of Alves dos Reis, the man who made 500 escudo bills and almost bought Banco de Portugal.
Who is Alves dos Reis
Born in Lisbon on September 8, 1896, Artur Virgilio Alves dos Reis is the man, or rather the mastermind, behind the biggest forgery of Vasco da Gama banknotes in Portuguese history. However, if this is the crime for which he goes down in history, Alves dos Reis also forged documents and signatures, bought shares illegally, issued bounced cheques. Falsified licenses - in short, an impressive number of crimes.
It was in Angola, the country where he arrived in 1916, that his career as a swindler began in earnest. He graduated from Oxford and presented himself in the then Portuguese colony as a graduate engineer from a non-existent school. The Polytechnic School of Engineering, according to the documents presented he was an expert in everything: physics, metallurgy, mechanics, civil engineering, geology. In short, an absolute genius.
Thanks to the African regime in place at the time. Alves dos Reis succeeded in buying the vast majority of shares in Angola's Trans-African Railways, from Moçamedes, by means of bounced cheques. He thus obtained the fortune he so desperately wanted.
To put the character into perspective, it's important to know that Alves dos Reis comes from a very poor background, and when he was younger he suffered multiple humiliations in front of his wife Luisa Jacobetty's family.
Back to Portugal
He decided to return to Lisbon in 1922 and began working as a car reseller. However, his demons soon caught up with him. He decided to repeat his first swindle by taking over the Ambaca company, proceeding in exactly the same way as with the acquisition of the Trans-African Railways. In other words, he used bounced cheques. Once at the helm of the company, he decided to use the Ambaca money to cover the bounced cheques he had previously written.
Unfortunately for him, things don't go according to plan. Even before Alves dos Reis could take full control of Ambaca, he was arrested for embezzlement and arms trafficking. He was incarcerated. E It was in prison that he created his most ambitious scam, the one that would make him go down in history as Portugal's greatest con man.
The multiplication of notes
At the time, Waterlow & Sons in London was the company responsible for printing banknotes for the Banco de Portugal. His plan was simple: hijack the printing of banknotes. To achieve this, Alves dos Reis drew up a contract and had it notarized. He forged the signatures of the Banco de Portugal administration and put his plan into action. Of course, he was not alone in this mad scheme. With him were two accomplices. Dutch financier Karel Marang. A German spy and José Bandeira, brother of the Portuguese ambassador in The Hague.
The political situation in Portugal at the time was in turmoil, with governments formed in haste and a desperate economic crisis. Taking advantage of this situation, Alvez dos Reis convinced the British that the printing of banknotes should be done in a very private way, and that the money was intended as a loan for the development of Angola.
Alves dos Reis' delirious yet meticulous nature also led him to forge letters from Banco de Portugal to Waterlow & Sons. Everything was in place to pull off the perfect coup, which could turn him, the son of a modest Lisbon cangalheiro, into one of the country's most important men.
Printed banknotes
Faced with all the documentation provided by Alves dos Reis and his accomplices, the English company printed 200,000 bills with a face value of 500 escudos. To get an idea of the value of the scam, we're talking about something like 1 % of Portuguese GDP at the time. At the time, the bills were in the effigy of Vasco de Gama and the date shown was November 17, 1922. At one point, the number of counterfeit bills in circulation was almost identical to the number of genuine bills.
You're probably wondering how the counterfeit bills got to Portugal. I explained earlier that one of the accomplices was the brother of the Portuguese ambassador in The Hague. Well, it's quite simple: the bills arrived via diplomatic channels.
In June 1925, Alves dos Reis set up Banco Angola e Metrópole. Needless to say, to obtain the license, he once again produced forgeries. For a very long time, he lived a most luxurious life.
However, he still had one goal to reach: the Banco de Portugal. At the time, the bank was partly private. That's why Alves dos Reis started buying up shares, so he could control and invade the counterfeit market and prevent investigations. He was close to controlling the source and distribution of money in Portugal.
All good things must come to an end
People rightly say that when alms are great, the poor are distrustful. The truth is that as early as 1925, rumors surfaced that there were counterfeit bills in circulation. Even though counterfeit experts had detected nothing. Until the press, and in particular O Século, the country's most important newspaper at the time, began to take an interest in him.
Some journalists, intrigued by what was happening in the foreign exchange market, questioned the loans from Banco Angola and Metropolis at very low interest rates, receiving no deposits. Gathering evidence, journalists uncovered huge deposits for Alves dos Reis' bank account made from various exchange offices. All this was investigated and it was here that a duplicate bill was discovered, a situation that multiplied in the days that followed.
Prison and death
Alves dos Reis was arrested on December 6, 1925. While in prison, he convinced a judge that the Banco de Portugal was involved in the scheme and managed to falsify documents in prison. Tried in 1930, he was sentenced to 8 years' imprisonment and 12 years' exile. He was finally released in 1945.
Ruined on his release from prison, he was convicted again shortly afterwards for a scam. This time involving the sale of Angolan coffee. He died of a heart attack in 1955.
Alves dos Reis had everything and nothing. He succeeded in everything, but unfortunately was unable to keep anything. He went down in history as Portugal's greatest con man.
