It is the turn of the mastermind of the alleged corruption plot for the collection of illegal commissions derived from the purchase of masks in the midst of a pandemic. The judge of the National Court that instructs the case known as Koldo – after the former adviser of the former minister José Luis Ábalos involved in the affair – has summoned Juan Carlos Cueto, the businessman who controlled the company, to testify Soluciones de Gestión, which was awarded the investigated contracts for a total of 54 million euros. From 9:30 a.m. he will sit before the magistrate with the unknown of whether he will follow in the footsteps of the other four investigated, who refused to testify, or if instead he will begin to uncover the cake.
Legal sources do not dare to predict the strategy that his defense will follow. The first arrestees who sat before Judge Moreno – the brother of Ábalos’ ex-advisor, Joseba García Izaguirre; the president of Zamora CF, Víctor de Aldama, and the businessman Iñigo Rotaeche – did it hours after being arrested, when summary secrecy was still decreed.
The Prosecutor’s Office did not ask for prison for any of them and the judge, following this criterion, released them all provisionally with precautionary measures for the majority. However, at this point in the instruction the summary is declassified, so the parties in person should have had access to the entire instruction. Among them, Cueto’s defense.
The mastermind of the plot, according to investigators, was not arrested last week because he was outside Spain. Police sources explained, however, that he was not a fugitive, but that he was located at all times. And that it would be a matter of time before he appeared before the National Court, when the judge deemed it appropriate. Despite the fact that he was not among the twenty arrested last week by the Civil Guard, his name did already appear in the complaint filed by the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office as the epicenter of the corrupt plot.
It is not the first time that Cueto will tread the corridors of the National Court. In 2019, Judge José de la Mata agreed to send him to the dock for the alleged diversion and appropriation of funds in contracts for the supply of police equipment for Angola. Precisely as a result of that matter, the famous Defex case, the prosecuted businessman ceased to appear on the corporate bodies of the mercantile companies of the Cueto Group, despite the fact that the Prosecutor’s Office indicates in the complaint that “his participation in the business activity does not would have stopped”. In other words, the public ministry maintains that despite the fact that Soluciones de Gestión was owned by Rotaeche and Luis Presa Medina and administered by José Ángel Escorial, the company was really controlled by Cueto and another of the alleged masterminds of the plot: the president of Zamora.
This company was established in 2017 and, after a period of inactivity between 2018 and 2019, was awarded in 2020 eight contracts to supply health equipment through the negotiated procedure without advertising and with an emergency nature for a total amount of 54 million euros. It is estimated that he made a profit of 32% of the funds raised.
The indications obtained so far indicate that it was Ábalos’ ex-advisor who provided information about the award processes that started from the Ministry of Transport to Aldama, which he knew, at least, since December 2018. In a conversation that took place , of December 4, the businessmen investigated Cueto and Rotaeche speak of “a favor” that Koldo García and his “ex-boss” would have asked him, without specifying who it is.
The researchers suspect that he could allude to former minister José Luis Ábalos. This X can be elucidated this morning if Cueto decides to speak.
