Ricardo Espirito Santo Salgado, patriarch of the troubled Portuguese banking family Espirito Santo and former CEO of Banco Espirito Santo, was arrested today. This was reported to the Reutersa agency by an official of the Lisbon court, specifying that the former manager "was taken to court by representatives of the prosecutor's office and will appear before the judge during the day".
Portuguese media write that Salgado was arrested in the context of a money laundering investigation known as the "Monte Branco case", which he had previously witnessed.
The Portuguese banking group has recently undergone a double downgrade by Moody's and S&P. Precisely following this, the Portuguese Finance Minister Maria Luis Albuquerque intervened last week to reassure the country arguing that the conditions of Portugal's financial system are improving and that the difficult situation of a single group should not be confused with that of the system as a whole.
