In a statement published on the Internet, the PGR-P said that by order of 4 January charges were brought against 10 defendants, charging five of them with a crime of passive corruption and a crime of forgery and the remaining five with a crime of active corruption.

The facts now under investigation occurred from August to November 2016 and involved five Docapesca employees, on duty at the Aveiro coastal fishing port auction, and five local fishing vessel owners.

The Public Prosecutor's Office found that the auction employees, in exchange for monetary consideration paid by five local fishing vessel owners, proceeded, by altering the registration data in the existing data in the computer system of the auction, to several transfers of funds due for the sale of fish to owners of vessels of trawl gear for those five local fishing vessel owners.

According to the investigation, as a result of this conduct, the said trawler owners suffered an overall loss of approximately nine thousand euros, as a result of the undue benefit derived by the defendant vessel owners.