During the ceremony marking the 135th anniversary of the Lisbon Municipal Police, Luís Neves highlighted that the measure the Government is preparing "creates a specific classification of the crime of fraud, as a public crime, specifically aimed at this activity, the sale of substances that are passed off as narcotics when they are not."

"This is a legal ambiguity that has been systematically exploited by those who engage in this business, as it is not, from a technical point of view, a narcotic substance," he said.

The governor emphasised that the sale of counterfeit drugs is an activity that "often escapes a clear and adequate penal framework commensurate with its seriousness," causing a "feeling of insecurity."

With this change, we will have a mechanism and a specific penal instrument that unequivocally criminalises this practice and eliminates this grey area, providing a solid legal basis for intervening in the public sphere," he stated.