"The four detainees were only identified today at the District Court, where they will be subject to interrogation," judge Filipe Câmara told Lusa. The official stressed that "the first interrogation was interrupted due to a strike by court employees against overtime and should continue tomorrow." Filipe Câmara said he was unaware of the reasons that led to the change of plans in this operation, because it was planned for the detainees to be transferred to Lisbon for interrogation. "The reasons are not [of my knowledge]," he stressed. According to a note from the Public Prosecutor's Office, five people were arrested on Tuesday in Madeira and in the Lisbon region, in a process of alleged fraud against the State in the social mobility subsidy are indicted for criminal association, qualified fraud, forgery of documents and money laundering. The same information states that this inquiry already had eleven defendants constituted, one of them in preventive detention, and that the investigation continued under the direction of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP) of Loures, with the assistance of the Judiciary Police (PJ). In turn, the PJ announced that it arrested five people today and carried out 71 searches in an operation focused on the Autonomous Region of Madeira and the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, which targeted fraud against the State through the social mobility subsidy, in an amount exceeding half a million euros. According to the police statement, the domiciliary and non-domiciliary searches took place in Lisbon, Loures and Madeira, especially in the municipalities of Funchal, Santa Cruz and Câmara de Lobos, and constituted a second initiative in Operation Traveler's Route, whose inquiry is in charge of the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP) of Loures. "The investigation found that the defendants, with the aim of obtaining large illegitimate economic profits, decided to develop a criminal scheme with the aim of obtaining illegitimate profits through the social mobility subsidy, related to hundreds of non-existent trips, in the total amount of undue reimbursements exceeding half a million euros", reads the note released. The PJ also clarifies that the plan of these elements involved "recruiting residents" of Madeira, "who were provided with documents necessary to collect this subsidy and previously forged, such as air tickets, tickets and reservations, invoices and receipts". Then, these people were accompanied by members of the criminal network and presented the documentation at CTT stations on the mainland to receive the reimbursement from the State. "The criminal association now dismantled demonstrated high levels of organization, with different hierarchical levels, being composed of forgers, recruiters and/or recruiters and controllers," said the Judiciary. It was planned for the detainees, who are between 23 and 55 years old, to be presented to a judge at the criminal investigation court in Loures, which did not happen. For this operation, elements of the National Unit for Combating Corruption and the Criminal Investigation Department of Madeira were mobilized for this operation, with the PJ also counting on the support of the Portuguese Air Force at the logistical and transport level of defendants and evidence seized. Read Also: Madeira: Sixteen inmates requested documentation to vote (Portuguese version)