Agents of the National Police have arrested former PSOE deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes on Monday for his alleged involvement in the so-called Mediator case, an anti-fraud operation carried out in the Canary Islands that investigates the management of aid to food producers and for which he was under investigation. according to sources close to the investigation. Fuentes, who has been arrested as part of the search of his home, on the island of Fuerteventura, resigned six days ago from his seat in the Congress of Deputies, after being implicated in the aforementioned operation.
Within the framework of this investigation, which in principle is under summary secrecy, the number of detainees amounts to 12. All of them are being investigated for bribery, money laundering, forgery, belonging to a criminal organization and influence peddling. The investigation, led by the head of the Investigating Court Number 4 of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, is still open, and focuses on alleged irregularities in the management of European subsidies linked to food products.
The arrest of Juan Bernardo Fuentes occurred around 9 in the morning this Monday as part of the search of his home in Puerto del Rosario, on the island of Fuerteventura. The magistrate has urged his arrest after Fuentes, by leaving his act of deputy, was devoid of parliamentary immunity.
Fuentes, who was a deputy for the province of Las Palmas, was general director of Livestock at the beginning of the mandate of the Canarian Government. His nephew, Taishet Fuentes, who took over from him, was arrested last week for his alleged involvement in this case, and was released with the obligation to report a change of residence. Taishet Fuentes had already been relieved of his position in the Canary Islands government last summer, after losing the confidence of the president, Víctor Torres.
Within the framework of the anti-fraud operation, the judge has already decreed the entry into provisional prison, communicated and unconditionally, for the retired Civil Guard general who was in charge of the Las Palmas Command, Francisco Javier Espinosa Navas, for his alleged relationship in the case.
The alleged crimes that the detainees are accused of, according to the aforementioned sources of the investigation, are limited to the years 2020 and 2021, when the retired general was in charge of the GAR-SI Sahel project, in charge of training gendarmes in West African countries and, therefore, without direct dependence on the organizational structure of the Civil Guard.