The Portuguese Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, announced yesterday, after the extraordinary meeting held by the Council of Ministers, t

A reasoned decision "on the exceptional, delicate and unusual" situation in the entity, according to the minister noted, accumulated debts of around 700 million euros. But the first intervention Teixeira dos Santos was followed by another mid-afternoon, in which the minister appeared alongside the governor of the Bank of Portugal (BOP), Vítor Constâncio to "broaden" the information on which will be the first nationalization a bank in the country since 1975. In this second appearance, the rationale for state intervention in the state and were not losses due to the financial crisis, but the alleged illegal and illicit activities that the bank would have been developed. "The situation of BPN is not necessarily to do with the current situation of financial markets, which has created additional difficulties to all entities," Teixeira dos Santos said, adding that "it has to do with the accumulated losses of operations of legality and dubious legality, subject to inspection by the Bank of Portugal and reported to the Attorney General's Office for possibly illegal and criminal acts. " The governor of the BOP, for its part, said that although the problems of the institution that will be intervened "worsened since the summer, they come back." According to various media lusos collected, the BOP last year began an inspection of the Portuguese Banco de Negocios and in it were found to be deficient, related to "provision and lack of information on credit transactions in tax havens, which have not been properly cleared up '. But for the record, "was even more surprising to discover a large set of credit operations and purchases of assets that were not registered in any accounting of any of the entities of the group." These "clandestine operations", integrated into the accounts of BPN, reduced its solvency ratio, placing it at serious risk of bankruptcy. Last week, the president of the organization, Jose Oliveira e Costa, said in the Diário Económico, to the extent of the rumors and fear of clients, that his bank had nothing to hide and that he hoped his team, which comply with the law. But yesterday, the BOP appointed two administrators of the Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) to take the reins of BPN, while the Minister of Finance launched a message of calm to customers, assuring them that their deposits are now fully secure " .