There are those who do not provide services for less than ten thousand euros, others for six thousand, and many can interfere with Sephardic Jewish origins from only three thousand and above. In fact, thanks to a simple click on the Internet, there is no shortage of law firms, genealogists and businessmen here and abroad, brandishing their privileged connections with the Jewish communities of Porto and Lisbon, promising an open path to Portuguese passport in accordance with the law passed in 2015, granting citizenship to citizens who happened to be of Sephardic Jewish descent and received an expulsion order from King Manuel I in December 1496. The size of the business related to Portuguese citizenship has increased significantly over the past two years. years after Spain abolished the law with the same aim of restoring history to prevent a repetition of dubious trials such as that involving the last Portuguese citizen, multimillionaire Roman Abramovich.
Even without taking into account the data for 2021, until December 31, 2020, the Instituto dos Registos e Notariado (IRN) received almost 87,000 requests for citizenship. The majority (88.5%), according to figures provided by the Ministry of Justice (MJ) VISÃO, saw evidence of ties to the Sephardic people, confirmed by the Porto Jewish Community (CJP) – the same organization that was criticized. in recent weeks, for recognizing the ancestors of a Russian Jewish businessman, the owner of the British football club Chelsea, and who guarantees that he has already proposed to the Government amendments to the law to make the processes more transparent.
