MADRID, March 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The magistrate of the Investigating Court Number 4 of Santa Cruz de Tenerife Ángeles Lorenzo-Cáceres has agreed to send the proceedings carried out to date in the ‘Mediator case’ to the European Prosecutor’s Office so that it can verify if there are investigated facts that fall within its competence.
This is stated in an order signed by the magistrate this Wednesday, March 22, to which Europa Press has had access, in which it points out that “given the state of these proceedings” it is appropriate to issue a letter to that prosecutor’s office to see if in this case there has been a diversion of European funds.
In this ‘Meditor case’, the alleged existence of a network headed by the retired General of the Civil Guard Francisco Espinosa, by the former socialist deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo –alias ‘Tito Berni’–, by his nephew Taishet Fuentes, is being investigated. Gutiérrez and by the Canarian businessman Antonio Navarro Tacoronte –the mediator– who would have dedicated himself to collecting bribes in exchange for political favors.
According to the summary, to which this agency had access, the plot would be made up of a criminal organization “formed mainly by three pillars and a clear link between all those investigated.” It would have “a perfectly structured and defined hierarchy, with a clear division of functions and dedicated to the commission of crimes related to corruption such as bribery and influence peddling.”
The investigators maintain that the group pursued “an obvious lucrative purpose by obtaining economic enrichment as well as different personal benefits as a result of illegal actions.”
Precisely in his statement before the magistrate, to which Europa Press had access, ‘Tito Berni’ acknowledged that his company received European aid – without clarifying the amounts or in what period – when asked by the judge if “during” his mandate as director of Ganadería de Canarias “he intervened in some file related to his company”.
Fuentes Curbelo responded to the magistrate who once held public office in the Canary Islands was “advised” by the legal services of the general directorates to “leave” her responsibilities in the company. “I don’t remember having participated directly, but my company has been a beneficiary of subsidies and aid from European funds,” she explained.
However, he pointed out that the person in charge of managing the requests for said aid was his wife, and that the union has “an aid that is called for the producer and one for the dairy industry” that is requested “depending on the liters of milk produced by the industry”.
MONIKA HOHLMEIR’S REQUEST
On March 16, the president of the Budgetary Control Committee of the European Parliament, the German Monika Hohlmeir, asked the European Commission in writing to investigate whether European funds have been involved in the ‘Mediator case’.
In a letter sent to the offices of the economic vice-president of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, and the European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, to which Europe Press had access, Hohlmeier warned of “worrying” news about the execution of certain projects in the Canary Islands in which it warns that “EU funds could be at stake”.
He pointed out in his letter to the commissioners that the Spanish media had sent him “worrying news about the execution of certain projects in the Canary Islands, in which EU funds could be at stake and, more specifically, from the Recovery and Resilience”.
For this reason, he asked the Community Executive to explain if EU funds have been involved and to what extent, and how Brussels intends to follow up on the issue, and also encouraged them to report it “in due time”. before the parliamentary commission that she chairs.
