Portuguese police detain 13 in 'Águas Turvas' raid on Gaia water utility over €8M corruption scheme

The operation

Portuguese criminal police launched a major operation codenamed "Águas Turvas" on Tuesday, 26 May 2026, targeting the municipal water company Águas de Gaia in Vila Nova de Gaia, near Porto. The Polícia Judiciária (PJ) executed approximately 30 search warrants across northern Portugal, with some reports indicating the total number of searches could exceed 50, including company premises and private residences. Inspectors seized documentation and computer equipment for forensic analysis.

The investigation, ongoing for about 17 months, focuses on a broad organized scheme of economic-financial crime, developed through the combined efforts of private-sector businesspeople and Águas de Gaia employees with relevant decision-making powers in public procurement and its execution.

The allegations

Thirteen suspects were detained on suspicion of active corruption, passive corruption, abuse of power, and money laundering, with a total value of €8 million at stake. According to the PJ, the suspects established a stable relational framework functionally oriented toward manipulating administrative decision-making. Public procurement was allegedly instrumentalized as a means of obtaining illegitimate patrimonial and non-patrimonial advantages through repeated and coordinated practices designed to condition decisions, shape procedures, anticipate outcomes, and neutralize control mechanisms.

Public procurement was instrumentalized as a means of obtaining illegitimate patrimonial and non-patrimonial advantages, with repeated and coordinated practices aimed at conditioning decisions, shaping procedures, anticipating results, and neutralizing control mechanisms.

Who was detained

Among those detained are businesspeople from various sectors and senior executives of Águas de Gaia, as well as other employees of the municipal entity who, since 2024, were responsible for the conclusion and execution of public procurement procedures with the suspect companies. The investigation also examines suspicions of the instrumentalization of the municipal company for private purposes, resulting in an illegitimate appropriation of public, material, and human resources in violation of the functional duties that employees were supposed to guarantee, causing clear damage to the public treasury.

Broader investigation context

The case is being handled by the DIAP Regional do Porto. RTP reported that more than 50 people are involved, the majority being Águas de Gaia employees. The current probe spans both the previous and current management of the company. The previous president of the ADGAIA board, Miguel Lemos Rodrigues, had already been charged in September 2025 by the Public Prosecutor's Office with several economic crimes, including corruption, for allegedly rigging public procurement rules. In that earlier case, eight other defendants — three businesspeople and five corporate entities — were also charged with abuse of power, economic participation in business, active and passive corruption, and influence peddling.

Political dimension

The investigation touches on the municipal management periods of Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues, the former mayor of Vila Nova de Gaia who was removed from office on corruption suspicions in September 2025, and Luís Filipe Menezes, the current mayor of Gaia. The case represents a significant escalation in the judicial scrutiny of the municipality's public contracting practices, with the PJ indicating that informal communication channels, exploitation of functional and personal relationships, and the creation of expectations of future benefits were used to subvert oversight mechanisms.