PSP de Leiria detained a 50-year-old man in Marinha Grande on 25 May 2026, ending an eight-year search for a fugitive convicted of armed robberies and carjackings marked by extreme violence. He was taken to the Leiria Prison Establishment to begin serving a seven-year prison sentence.
The detention was carried out by the Esquadra de Intervenção e Fiscalização Policial de Leiria under a judicial warrant, and it happened without incidents or resistance at a restaurant in Marinha Grande. The man had been in flight from justice since 2017, long after the crimes that date back to 2008.
That history matters because the case was not a routine theft file. PSP says he was part of an organized group of four men responsible for robberies in Pombal, Marinha Grande, Albergaria dos Doze, Ferreira do Zêzere, Soure and Sertã, where victims were beaten with punches and kicks, moving vehicles were intercepted and occupants were pulled out violently. In some cases, stolen vehicles were later used in jewelry-store robberies.
The details described by police show a pattern that went well beyond opportunistic crime. In Ferreira do Zêzere, assailants threatened customers with a sawed-off shotgun and violently assaulted a jewelry-store owner. In Soure, the group is also suspected of a robbery worth more than 100,000 euros, while in Sertã the suspects entered a jewelry store with a crowbar, threatened the owner with a firearm and broke display cases to steal gold pieces.
For years, PSP said it worked to locate the man and eventually identified his residence and workplace in France, in the Saint-Tropez region, while the prison sentence remained outstanding. He had been living and working there even as the warrant stayed active, a gap that explains why the capture mattered so much when it finally came in Marinha Grande.
PSP de Marinha Grande gave support during the arrest, and the suspect was transferred after the legal formalities were completed. The case closes one of the longer fugitive searches in the region and puts the sentence back at the center of the story: after eight years on the run, he is no longer wanted, he is imprisoned.
