The Ministry of Transport was the one that chose the company that is at the epicenter of the Koldo plot to obtain the contracts under suspicion of State Ports, ADIF and the Ministry of the Interior. This is clear from the statements of the senior officials of these organizations who have testified as witnesses before the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard. From the answers in these interrogations, to which La Vanguardia has had access, it is understood that it was the then advisor and right-hand man of former minister José Luis Ábalos who put the company Soluciones de Gestión on the table to be hired. The thesis of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the judge of the National Court is that Koldo García received bribes in exchange for facilitating it.
One of the most explicit interrogations was that of the then president of ADIF Isabel Pardo de Vera. Five million masks were purchased from this organization in the middle of the pandemic for 12.5 million euros. According to what she said, the order that Transport be in charge of purchasing masks was approved by the Council of Ministers. Then it was decided that first eight million masks, and then the body that she presided over, which depends on this ministry.
When asked by the agents, Pardo de Vera denied that he was pressured to award the contract directly to SG. What he did have was “pressure” from Abalos and his cabinet so that the award was made as quickly as possible and that the availability of masks was as fast as possible. “On this issue Koldo was very insistent, always on behalf of the minister,” he warned.
The witnesses pass the ball to each other without giving the name and surname of the person who decided on the front company used by the plot. Neither who ordered, nor who suggested hiring this company.
The president of ADIF knew who Koldo was. He was in the organization’s Cabinet as an advisor. Not because of his technical knowledge, but as a trusted man of the minister “to increase his salary.” Pardo de Vera also acknowledged meeting the businessman Víctor de Aldama at the Ministry of Transportation on occasion with Koldo. This businessman, president of Zamora C.F., acknowledged in a tax inspection that he was the one who found out that the Ministry needed to acquire masks. Since his company did not have the technical capacity to do so, he contacted businessman Juan Carlos Cueto and they decided that SG would be awarded the contract.
According to the president, the management committee was the one that decided that the entire hiring matter would be assumed by the general secretary. The agents then questioned Michaux Miranda, general director of people management at ADIF and person in charge of the contract. In his line of events, the name SG was given to him by the Secretary General of Ports, Álvaro Sánchez Manzanares. They had already contracted with this company that had delivered the entire batch of masks. This was the one who gave him the contact of the person in charge of this company, Iñigo Rotaeche.
Of course, the contract was signed by Pardo de Vera. About his relationship with Koldo: superficial, professional and punctual. Two other senior ADIF officials point to Miranda as the person who provided SG’s name.
The first contract came from State Ports, as established by the Ministry. According to the president at the time, Francisco Toledo, the person who maintained “direct contact” with the Ministry and who decided to hire SG was the general secretary, Álvaro Sánchez Manzanares, dismissed this week by the current Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente . He told his president that this company was the only one qualified to take on the order. According to what he told the agents, Sánchez Manzanares received the name from a third person in the administration, “but he doesn’t know who.” Regarding Koldo, he only saw him once, despite being a Ports advisor. He came one day to “collect the diet.”
Sánchez Manzanares was given the name SG by the Ministry, according to his own version during his testimony. As they explained, this company offered, they did the basic checks, typical of the emergency situation at the time, and since it met the legal requirements, they signed the contract. The person responsible for preparing the contract explained that a public permit was not necessary but that since they were emergency contracts, a previously chosen company could be hired. As a result of these contracts, she established a friendship with Koldo, who called her to ask her political questions “since his training is limited.”
The person who also acknowledged maintaining a relationship with Koldo today is Jesús Manuel Gómez García, undersecretary of the Ministry of Transportation. In his case because, as he well recognized in his statement, this continues to be the link with Ábalos, despite the fact that both ceased in 2021. He acknowledged that he provided documentation of these contracts to Koldo to deliver them to the former minister.
And the third contract, the Interior contract, was similar. Jose Antonio Rodriguez, general director of Coordination and Studies dependent on the Secretary of State for Security, explained that they needed masks, he found out that Ports had already closed a contract, they provided him with contact for Koldo and someone, undetermined, provided him with contact for SG . Investigators have clues that make them suspect that the sponsor, that kind of commercial agent of the company, was Koldo, Ábalos’s man of complete confidence.