The defendants are to face charges ranging from criminal association, illegal involvement in private security provision, extortion, coercion, qualified threats to physical integrity through to trafficking and the possession of illegal arms and personal enrichment.
One of those facing charges is the managing director of the security firm SPDE, Eduardo Jorge Lopes Santos Silva, one of 13 defendants remanded in custody on charges of criminal association and the alleged ringleader of a group providing a mob style security racket.
Through recourse to intimidation of differing types, the prosecution maintains that Santos Silva was able to force private security services onto nightclubs and similar establishments across Portugal.
Furthermore, the same group is accused of running both a debt collection agency that made recourse to physical threats as a means of ensuring its success and an unlicensed personal security service.
FC Porto president Jorge Nuno Lima Pinto da Costa faces charges of having contracted such security services even while knowing that they could not be legally rendered.
The operation has involved over four dozen searches at addresses across mainland Portugal and resulting in the seizure of vehicles, money, weapons and documentation.