Polícia Judiciária Searches AIMA's Ponta Delgada Office in Operação Linha Direta — Public Servants Suspected of Selling Appointment Priority and Case-Processing Speed Inside the Loja AIMA dos Açores

The Polícia Judiciária dos Açores, working with the PJ's Unidade de Perícia Tecnológica e Informática and under the direction of the Departamento de Investigação e Ação Penal da Comarca dos Açores, executed nine search warrants on Wednesday, 29 April 2026 against employees of a public institute that performs administrative acts on behalf of the State. Three of the searches were at private residences; three were at premises of the institute itself, including the Loja AIMA in Ponta Delgada. The seizure list, in the language of the official communiqué, runs to a relevante acervo documental, especialmente de dados informáticos e correspondência eletrónica. The criminal types under investigation are abuso de poder, recebimento indevido de vantagem and corrupção. The operation has been given the codename Linha Direta.

The Alleged Scheme

According to the wire dispatch picked up by ECO, RTP, CNN Portugal, Notícias ao Minuto and Açoriano Oriental on 30 April, the indiciary thread the PJ is pulling on is the atribuição indevida de prioridade a determinados atendimentos e ao tratamento de processos, mediante contrapartidas de natureza patrimonial — public servants suspected of moving certain appointments and case files to the front of the queue in exchange for property or financial benefit. None of the consulted reports name suspects, confirm formal constitution as arguidos, quote any value of the alleged bribes, or specify whether the appointments at issue concerned residence-permit renewals, family reunification, nationality applications or another track. The DIAP, not the Departamento Central de Investigação e Ação Penal in Lisbon, is leading the case — a venue choice that signals a regionally-bounded inquiry rather than a country-wide network.

AIMA's Response

The Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo, headed since July 2024 by Pedro Portugal Gaspar, issued a statement to CNN Portugal on 30 April confirming the institute had determinado a instauração de um inquérito interno relacionado com a Loja AIMA de Ponta Delgada, parallel to the criminal proceedings, and pledged total colaboração às autoridades competentes e à administração da justiça, declaring itself especialmente interessada no completo esclarecimento dos factos e no cumprimento da lei. The institute has not, as of this article's filing, named the staff under inquiry or said how many positions are involved.

The Union Steps Out — STM, 2 May

The Sindicato dos Técnicos de Migração, the AIMA-specific union founded in June 2024 by the agency's own staff and not affiliated with STAL or Frente Comum, published a public statement on Friday 2 May expressing total solidariedade with the Ponta Delgada colleagues and asking for the inquiry to run to its conclusion. The STM's framing is significant. Speaking to the wider story rather than the criminal one, the union warned: A exposição negativa contínua, não só fragiliza a credibilidade da instituição, como também aumenta significativamente a pressão sobre os trabalhadores. On the practical impact for the foreign residents the institute is meant to serve, it added: Esta situação não traz qualquer benefício para os cidadãos estrangeiros que dependem destes serviços, antes contribui para agravar dificuldades já existentes. The statement closes with a defence of in-house expertise against the perennial proposal to outsource AIMA's atendimento — trata-se de funções que exigem conhecimento especializado, responsabilidade institucional e sensibilidade jurídica, não devendo ser desvalorizadas ou externalizadas.

The Backdrop: AIMA's Backlog Has Been Visible for Months

The Linha Direta searches do not arrive into a vacuum. The administrative-court system has been visibly buckling under AIMA-related litigation: ECO reported on 4 March 2026 that 129,239 cases related to entry and residence in Portugal were pending in the administrative courts, prompting the Conselho Superior dos Tribunais Administrativos to attach 28 extra judges in regime de acumulação, concentrated at the Tribunal Administrativo de Círculo de Lisboa to absorb the urgent intimações. On 21 April, Público reported that the Ordem dos Advogados had received complaints from law firms over more than €200,000 in unpaid fees owed by AIMA for residence-case work the institute had commissioned. And the headline 2025 number that has shadowed Pedro Portugal Gaspar's tenure — 76,000 regularisation requests rejected in early 2025, per ECO of 19 February 2025 — remains the institutional indictment behind today's procedural one. Allegations that an interior queue could be jumped for a price land in that environment.

What This Changes for Foreign Residents

• The AIMA Loja in Ponta Delgada continues to operate. The PJ executed search warrants and seized documents; the institute has not been suspended. Expat residents in São Miguel with scheduled appointments should attend them as booked.
• The internal inquiry is the document trail to watch. Two parallel processes are now running — DIAP-led criminal and AIMA-led administrative. Sanctions, suspensions or dismissals of named staff would normally surface through the administrative process before any criminal indictment is announced.
• This is not the same story as last week's appointment-fraud scam alert. The 1 May warning AIMA itself put out concerned external impostors selling fake appointment slots to foreign residents through unofficial channels. Operação Linha Direta concerns the inverse — staff inside the institution allegedly trading on the queue from within. If both are corroborated, the trust pincer on AIMA tightens from both directions in the same week.
• The five official channels remain unchanged. Appointments are scheduled exclusively through the AIMA portal (aima.gov.pt), the official Linha de Atendimento on 217 115 000, the Espaços AIMA / Centros Nacionais de Apoio à Integração de Migrantes (CNAIM), the consulado route for visas issued abroad, and the Loja de Cidadão balcões where AIMA has presence. Anyone offering paid priority through other means — whether external scammer or, now, allegedly internal collaborator — falls outside those five channels.
• The political question is what 28 extra judges do not fix. The administrative-courts surge addresses the output of AIMA's bottleneck. The Linha Direta investigation, if the indiciary thread holds, addresses a possibility that some of the input sequencing has been compromised. Solving one without the other does not restore the queue.

Sources: ECO (30 April 2026 and 4 March 2026); RTP Notícias (30 April 2026); CNN Portugal (30 April 2026, AIMA inquérito interno); Notícias ao Minuto (30 April 2026); Açoriano Oriental (30 April 2026); Observador (30 April 2026 primary, 2 May 2026 STM follow-up); Público (21 April 2026, lawyer fees; 5 June 2024, STM founding; 19 February 2025, regularisation rejections via ECO).