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Ele enganou os turistas com bilhetes falsos.

Ele enganou os turistas com bilhetes falsos.
He tricked the tourists with fake tickets.
From Lesson 437:Crime e autoridade (o tiro, a bala)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Breakdown of Ele enganou os turistas com bilhetes falsos.

o bilhete
the ticket
o turista
the tourist
falso
false
enganar
to deceive, to trick

Questions & Answers about Ele enganou os turistas com bilhetes falsos.

Since enganou means 'tricked' here, how would I say 'he made a mistake'?
You would use the reflexive form of the same verb: ele enganou-se. While enganar (without the pronoun) means to trick or deceive someone else, adding the reflexive pronoun turns it into deceiving oneself, which is the standard way to say you made a mistake in Portuguese.
Why is falsos placed after bilhetes instead of before?
In Portuguese, placing the adjective after the noun is the standard way to express an objective, literal characteristic. Placing falsos before bilhetes would give it a more figurative or emotional weight, whereas here it is simply a factual statement that the tickets are counterfeit.
Could bilhetes also mean traffic tickets in this context?
No. While English uses the word ticket for both events and traffic violations, Portuguese uses bilhetes specifically for things like transport, flights, cinema, or concerts. A traffic ticket or fine is called a multa.
Is com the only way to say he tricked them 'with' fake tickets?
com is the most natural choice here because it indicates the tool or instrument used to perform the action. You could potentially use a phrase like por meio de (by means of), but that sounds much more formal and less natural for this everyday sentence.

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