Alves Reis: Portugal's most audacious fraudster

est.reading time: 8min

(100 years ago) Porto was the start line for a millionaire heist

If you think that climb from Ribeira up to Porto's Cathedral is hard, imagine Artur Alves Reis’s adrenaline surge while managing the largest fraud in Portuguese history and his heart rate while having to figure out ways to deal with multiple bags filled with illegally printed banknotes delivered right to his door! 

It all started in  the former jailhouse of Porto.  Within its granite walls, Alves Reis hatched the most audacious plan ever seen in Europe. He wasn't just planning a heist; he was planning how to print real money in a... "creative" way. But is one brilliant mind enough to win a race where the Bank of Portugal sets the rules?

Alves Reis spent nearly two months in prison in Porto. Quite an inspiring stay, I must say!

Forging a path to high society and earning his first ticket to jail

Born the son of a bankrupt undertaker - hardly a pedigree of high finance - Artur Alves Reis escaped his humble roots by marrying into status and forging a diploma from the non-existent "Polytechnic School of Engineering of Oxford." This fake credential launched his career in Angola, where he transitioned from a railway 'engineer' to a wealthy entrepreneur by refurbishing old machinery and embezzling large sums of money from an Angolan railway company.

These early scams in Angola demonstrated his remarkable talent for forging documents—a skill he would, 10 years later, exploit for his own gain.

Upon his (decision to) return to Lisbon, Alves Reis juggled an import-export firm, a taxi fleet, and a luxury car dealership—fueled by reckless stock market gambling. When his financial house of cards finally collapsed into a heap of legal battles and bounced checks, he landed in jail for 54 days. Rather than serving as a deterrent, this 'rest period' provided the clarity he needed to engineer what would become the most ingenious financial scam in European history.

 Porto’s prison was the perfect quiet spot for dreaming up his master plan...!

The former Jailhouse of Porto is now home to CPF - Center for Portuguese Photography. We run by frequently.

The Ultimate scam: Printing real money

Armed with a pair of forged contracts and reputable accomplices, Reis convinced the prestigious Waterlow & Sons printing house in London that he was the official representative of the Bank of Portugal, in Angola. 

The goal? To print banknotes of 500 escudos to "aid the colony's economy."  ​

Over the course of the scam, he managed to get 200,000 banknotes printed. This amounted to roughly 1% of Portugal’s GDP at the time! He didn’t ask for cheap counterfeits made in a garage; he ordered the original material, using the official paper and the original plates. His "peloton" of accomplices, including a Dutch merchant, a couple of diplomats and a German spy, prepared for the first leg of the race.

Back in the 1920s, the Bank of Portugal was an independent institution not entirely controlled by the government—a loophole that Alves Reis exploited. At the time, the bank also outsourced the printing of currency (escudos) to countries like England and the Netherlands.

Alves Reis forged multiple contracts and letters, using some of the Banco de Portugal managers' signatures, including those that can be seen in the 500escudos note itself! 

Sprinting Toward the Podium

By 1925, the "race" was running smoothly. Money began flowing into Portugal by the bagful, literally, taking advantage of the diplomatic immunity of his accomplices. Reis didn't stay on the sidelines; he opened his own bank, the Banco Angola e Metrópole. He bought companies, laundered cash, and even started buying shares of the Bank of Portugal itself to eventually control the very institution that could shut him down. 

It was an uncontrolled sprint toward absolute power, and for a while, no one had the legs to catch him. Alves Reis had gone from almost bankruptcy to millionaire in little over one year. 

What-A-Sprint...!! But the race was not over yet...

Cramping Up: why you shouldn't flood the market

But as any local runner knows, Porto is defined by steep inclines and sudden dead ends. It was precisely here, in the Cidade Invicta, that the pace began to falter. The excess 500-escudo notes (the famous 'Vasco da Gama' Plate 2) circulating in the hands of people who seemed to have won the lottery overnight began to raise eyebrows. Newspapers started publishing articles regarding sudden fortunes and lavish spending on jewelry, estates, and imported luxury cars by Reis's accomplices. 

Finally, a teller at a money exchange house in Porto blew the whistle, and the Bank of Portugal acted swiftly. The city that saw the plan conceived in its prison was now the place where Reis tripped over his own shoelaces.

Quick stop for a story in front of Porto's branch office of Banco de Portugal where the fraud was unveiled, in 1925. 
​Note: the  read this post to learn about Roman warrior statue  and why it's not there anymore.

The Photo Finish: Identical Twins

 December 6, 1925, was a decisive day: Alves Reis and some of his accomplices were arrested on board of the steam ship Adolph Woermann, even before it docked in Lisbon. Alves Reis was coming from Paris where he had spent some days (+a lot of money!) with his family.

A few days prior to the arrest, experts from the Bank of Portugal, examining notes at the Porto branch, discovered the unthinkable: two banknotes with the exact same serial number. It was the technical error, the slip on the course that ruined everything. They weren't "fake" notes in the traditional sense—they were identical twins. ​

Panic ensued, and the Bank of Portugal had to withdraw every 500-escudo note from circulation in record time. Alves Reis, who had spent months accelerating, suddenly found himself facing a finish line he hadn't imagined: a return to prison. The finish line was actually a set of iron bars!

Alves Reis (upper row/center) and his accomplices, arrested in Lisbon in 1925. 

The Cool Down: Lessons from the Ultimate Shortcut

Today, when we run past the Cordoaria district on our tours, we look at the Portuguese Center of Photography (the former jailhouse) with an ironic smile. It was there that one man's imagination ran faster than reality, creating a fraud that nearly toppled the national economy. Reis was eventually convicted, and Waterlow & Sons was hit with a lawsuit so massive it led to their eventual downfall. 

After all, life is a long-distance race, and shortcuts rarely lead to the podium. 

Personal note:  The extreme political instability of that era in Portugal, combined with the inflation worsened by the 1925 Alves Reis bank note fraud, ultimately plunged the country into the long, dark dictatorship of the Estado Novo (Salazar).  As someone born and raised in a democracy, I am deeply concerned by the rising greed of a class of manipulative men who know exactly how to surround themselves with the right accomplices. 

At Porto Running Tours, we prefer to earn our bread (and our post-run beer) more honestly. Unlike leaders who use divisive language to split the world into "good" and "bad" or "black" and "white," we have welcomed every runner with open arms since 2015!

Note: the full story can be read (in Portuguese) on the Bank of Portugal's website - HERE

(This post contains AI generated photos)

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