By Axel Bugge
LISBON (Reuters) - Portuguese police carried out mass searches into the collapsed business empire of the Espirito Santo family on Thursday, including on 34 homes, on suspicions of fraud, tax evasion and money laundering, the prosecutor general said.
The searches marked the most visible action yet by Portuguese authorities into the Espirito Santo family business empire, one of the country's richest, which crumbled under a mountain of debt in August.
The collapse prompted a 4.9-billion-euro rescue of Banco Espirito Santo (BES), the country's largest listed bank which was founded by the family and nearly went under because of its exposure to the family's debts.
The problems first became visible when an audit showed irregularities at one of the family's holding companies in June.
The prosecutor general said in a statement that the searches also extended to a lawyer's office and six locations related to financial activities.
The searches were "related to the Espirito Santo universe in which there are suspicions of fraud, abuse of confidence, falsifying documents, money laundering and tax evasion," the prosecutor general said without giving further details. It was not disclosed whose homes were searched.
Nobody from the family was immediately available to comment.
Thursday's action included 200 officers from an anti-corruption unit of the judicial police and 14 investigating judges.
The investigation into the biggest financial collapse in modern Portuguese history was first instigated by the Bank of Portugal and the CMVM stock market regulator and has speeded up since the collapse of BES in the summer. A special task force has been established to carry out the investigation.
Soon after the rescue of BES, all of the main Espirito Santo family holding companies - which are registered in Luxembourg - filed for bankruptcy.
Ricardo Salgado, the head of the family, was named in July by an investigating judge as a suspect in a long-running money-laundering and tax evasion investigation that is separate to the authorities' action surrounding the collapse of the family business. He has denied any wrongdoing.
(Editing by Susan Fenton)