Store assumed leadership in 2017 and there are 47 alleged irregular awards between 2014 and 2019 for 927,499.74 euros
MADRID, March 9 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The colonel of the Civil Guard José María Tienda, dismissed as head of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Command for “loss of confidence” for his alleged involvement in the investigation that is being followed in a Madrid court for reforms in various barracks, was in charge of the body in the years in which at least seven works were awarded in an allegedly irregular manner for a combined amount of 44,866.20 euros.
This is stated in a report from the Internal Affairs Unit of the Civil Guard, to which Europa Press has had access, contributed to the procedure being investigated in the Investigating Court Number 3 of Madrid and which has been paralyzed for at least eight months waiting of an expert report on the works carried out in a dozen barracks of the Benemérita.
Tienda assumed the leadership of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Command in 2017 and remained in charge until Wednesday night, when the Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Pérez, agreed to dismiss him. The alleged irregularities committed in said Command -which are now being investigated by the courts- cover the period between December 2014 and April 2019 and affect at least 47 works.
According to the document of the Armed Institute, in those four and a half years, different invoices issued by the companies Angrasurcor SL, Solocorcho SL, Canarycork SL and Impermecork SL, as well as by a worker on their own account, “processed as a minor contract and fixed cash advances by the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Command for a joint amount of 927,499.74 euros.”
WORKS IN SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE
In the Internal Affairs document, it is stated that in 2019 the colonel in charge of the Quartering Service of the General Directorate of the Civil Guard issued a report on the verification of the material execution of the works, which revealed that of the total invoices analyzed relating to works in 21 barracks –1 on the island of El Hierro, 4 on La Gomera, 5 on La Palma and 11 on Santa Cruz de Tenerife– eight cases were detected, among other things, in which none of the units had been executed of work billed.
This report breaks down seven of the adjudications of works that are under suspicion in barracks in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife dated between 2017 and 2019, years in which Tienda was already head of the Command.
Specifically, there are three in 2017: one in the La Victoria barracks, for 1,730 euros; one in Puerto de La Cruz, for 811.20 euros; and one in Icod de los Vinos, for 2,200 euros. There is also one in 2018 in the Los Llanos de Aridane barracks, for 18,290 euros. These four appear in the list of “cases in which some of the invoiced work units have not been executed.”
Two cases of “deficient execution” are added to the list: one in the Los Llanos de Aridane barracks, for 5,720 euros; and one in Valverde de El Hierro, for 13.4546 euros. The two invoices are from 2018; the first, by chopping the breastplates throughout the deck and common areas; the second, for painting with white resin on the exterior facades and interior walls of the area of official dependencies, “the resin that appears on the invoice has not been applied.”
There is also a case in which “works are superimposed”. The invoice, for 2,569 euros, is from November 2018 and responds to a “mortar and paint repair of the kennels of the La Laguna barracks, coinciding with a work in progress on March 14, 2019.”
Thus, the report points to at least seven allegedly irregular work awards for a joint amount of 44,866.20 euros in the years in which Store directed the Command of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
RESEARCH IN MADRID
In general, the report prepared by Internal Affairs of the Civil Guard reveals that between 2008 and 2019, 13 territorial units of this body awarded works to companies managed by the businessman Ángel Ramón Tejera de León, alias ‘Mon’, and to a self-employed worker of its own for a value of more than 3.3 million euros.
‘Mon’ is listed as being investigated in the Madrid court that is investigating the case relating to the barracks and appears in the summary of the ‘Mediator’ case as a person linked to the investigated general Francisco Espinosa.
The agents stress that, despite being recorded as finished, some works were not executed or were partially carried out, “which could constitute the crimes of falsifying an official document, falsifying a commercial document and embezzlement.”
Legal sources have confirmed to Europa Press that the head of the Madrid court in charge of the investigation, magistrate María Isabel Durentez, is trying to clarify whether the amount allocated to the reforms of the Benemérita headquarters corresponds to the work carried out and that — although it commissioned an expert report last year–so far it remains awaiting expert conclusions.
Said report would serve to clarify the works undertaken in 13 command posts: those of Murcia, Albacete, Algeciras, Alicante, Badajoz, Castellón, Huelva, Jaén, La Coruña, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Toledo. Lieutenant General of the Civil Guard Pedro Vázquez Jarava, who was in charge of the General Support Subdirectorate of the Civil Guard at the time of the events, is listed as being investigated for the alleged irregularities in the contracting of said reforms.
The investigation that is now being carried out in Madrid comes from criminal proceedings opened in 2019 by the Investigating Court Number 2 of Ávila for a crime of embezzlement as a result of a report from Internal Services of the Civil Guard.
As reported by the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y León, those proceedings were opened due to complaints that warned of “a possible illegal action in a series of contracts for works in barracks”, which would have been inflated and some paid without executing. The investigating judge, after studying the matter, understood that he was not competent, since the investigated lieutenant general had the official headquarters in the General Directorate of Madrid.
