The Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife will host on Thursday the trial against a lottery administrator accused of embezzlement of public funds, specifically 181,798.10 euros, an amount in which he must compensate, plus interest, the State Lotteries and State Bets Company (SELAE).
As stated in the letter of qualification of the Prosecutor’s Office, which asks for four years in prison for the accused, he signed a contract by virtue of which he would be in charge of managing an establishment or Comprehensive Point of Sale (PVI) in Santa Cruz from Tenerife.
As a result of this contract, the defendant was in charge of the marketing of all State games whose management, exploitation and marketing correspond to SELAE.
The prosecutor adds that, with the aim of “obtaining an illicit patrimonial benefit and causing damage to SELA’s patrimony”, he did not provide funds to the administration he managed.
So when SELAE issued four receipts against the administration account corresponding to a monthly payment, it only collected one of them for an amount of 19,048.19 euros.
The first receipt, drawn for an amount of 139,103.33 euros, was returned for 138,951.41 euros, as there was only 151.92 euros in the account associated with the PVI.
The second, drawn for an amount of 33,726.00 euros, was returned for 33,606.00 euros, as there was only 120 euros in said account.
And the fourth, drawn for an amount of 9,302.50 euros, was returned for 9,240.69 euros, as there was only 61.81 euros in the account.
As a result of these returns, SELAE inspection officials carried out an inspection of the defendant’s lottery administration, in which they detected an overdraft that was definitively set at 181,798.10 euros, corresponding to the aforementioned amounts returned.
The facts described constitute a crime of improper embezzlement of public funds.
