PJ does not renew financial director Álvaro Pires amid trailer case inquiry

A non-renewal confirmed by the PJ

The Polícia Judiciária confirmed on Wednesday, 4 November 2026, that its National Directorate did not propose renewing the service commissions of two directors, the financial and asset management director, Álvaro Pires, and the director of innovation and development. The force's statement framed the decision in institutional terms:

“the National Directorate of the PJ did not propose to the supervising authority the renewal of those commissions”

RTP reported first that the decision came from the national director, Carlos Cabreiro. According to RTP, Pires had also asked to step back from his duties, a point the PJ statement did not mention. Pires told Observador that he had been aware of the decision but had not been given the reasons, and that he had been told a renewal was not timely.

“I was aware, but the reasons were not communicated to me.”

Pires said he did not want to make further statements for now.

The trailer at the centre of the dispute

Pires is tied to a trailer seized in Operation Pacoba, a drug trafficking investigation. RTP reports that Pires suggested to Luís Neves, the interior minister and former head of the PJ, that the trailer, which contained chemicals, be kept in the custody of Construbarcelos, a company that had carried out works at Neves's home. Neves decided on that arrangement and defended it as good management. The trailer was then handed to a Barcelos contractor, a friend of Neves by the minister's own admission, whose firm had won 17 works contracts at the PJ. Neves later hired the same contractor for personal works at a property he owns in Odemira, in the Alentejo.

Wrong cost figures and the justice minister

RTP also reports that Pires gave Cabreiro wrong information on the cost of destroying the seized material. Cabreiro passed those figures to Justice Minister Rita Alarcão Júdice, who then spoke publicly about amounts that contradicted Neves's version. RTP describes Pires as very close to the interior minister, who once called him 'the Mourinho of the Judiciária's finances'. The trailer episode is one of several controversies surrounding Neves's time leading the PJ.

Criminal inquiry and audits

The attorney general confirmed that the trailer case is under criminal investigation by the Public Prosecutor's Office, one of three criminal inquiries involving Neves. Two audits of the PJ are also under way, and both mostly cover the period when Neves led the force. One is an internal audit requested by Cabreiro, his successor. The other is run by the Inspeção-Geral dos Serviços de Justiça (IGSJ), whose conclusions the justice minister has placed at the end of the year.