The plot uncovered by Anticorruption, which has Koldo García as the main axis, sought help from senior officials of the Ministry of Transportation in recent months, already with Óscar Puente at the head of the portfolio, to try to stop tax inspections, which could end up uncovering the thunder box Since November 2023, nerves surfaced after the summons of one of the businessmen by a Treasury inspector.
The tension was maximum for two reasons. The first, because when the Treasury discovered them, they would demand 2.6 million euros, which meant the closure of the Soluciones de Gestión company. And the second, more dangerous, is that they feared that during the inspection opened to Víctor de Aldama, president of Zamora C.F., he would end up revealing the goings-on that they had set up during the time of José Luis Ábalos as minister.
This is what Juan Carlos Cueto tells it, one of the masterminds of the plot and who took the most money from public funds – 16.9 million euros of profit – with the mask contracts to Puertos del Estado, Adif, Ministry of the Interior, Service of Health of the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands. “They will ask him,” says Cueto, “about Aldama’s appearance before the AEAT, about me, about Angola, about Ábalos, about the President of the Government, about the Minister of Defense, about Delci, about the suitcases… about everything.” , includes a conversation that appears in the summary to which La Vanguardia has had access.
They feared that Aldama could end up involving them in other more complicated criminal matters. Cueto is awaiting trial for bribery in Angola. For that reason, the contracts that the National Court is now investigating were with a company whose name does not appear although it is actually the ultimate beneficiary. Another fear was that the true reasons why Ábalos received Venezuelan Minister Delcy Rodríguez when she stopped in Madrid in 2020 would end up being aired, despite being prohibited from setting foot on European soil due to EU sanctions on Maduro.
In the last months before the arrest carried out by the Civil Guard on February 20, Koldo, Ábalos’ former advisor in Transportation, had distanced himself from Aldama because he could be “radioactive”, which for investigators means that they believed they knew about the investigation.
Therefore, although since Koldo left the Ministry after the dismissal of Ábalos in July 2021, the relationship between them had cooled, that reactivated their contacts. Some days they had up to six calls. Nerves on edge. The administrative inspection of Aldama could end up toppling them like a house of cards. Cueto needed Koldo. The relationship was one of mutual need.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, García would have maneuvered so that the front company could take, in the middle of the pandemic, contracts for more than 50 million euros for masks. Although Íñigo de Rotaeche was the head of SG, Cueto was actually there. One of the researchers’ evidence is that the companies of the Cueto, S.G. group. and other companies linked to the plot had the same tax domicile. Aldama was the contact between Cueto and Koldo although in the end they all related to each other. And they were clear that if one fell, they all fell.
For this reason, according to UCO reports, Cueto asked Koldo to mediate with Abalos and people from the Ministry to stop the inspection as a result of the contracts signed with the Balearic Government during the time of Francina Armengol (PSOE), today president of Congress. of the Deputies. In a conversation, Cueto explains to Rotaeche the favors he is asking from “his neighbor,” in reference to Koldo. “It’s a messy issue but we can work to make them forget the executive issue. Your neighbor told me that he is going to try to touch the others as well, that he also has a very good relationship.”
In this context, always according to the investigators, Koldo would have said that he had relations with people from the PP who held the presidency of the Balearic Islands at that time, as well as senior Transport officials, with whom despite having been away for three years he continued to maintain a relationship. The researchers relate this conversation to a meeting on November 2 with the current undersecretary of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda – a senior official at MITMA -; ten minutes later with the director of EMFESA – a state commercial company linked to MITMA; and hours later with the general director of Conservation and Maintenance at ADIF.
After those three meetings, which took place in La Chalana, the Madrid seafood restaurant that became the nerve center of the plot, Koldo ordered his brother – who had also been placed in the Ministry – to meet with “José” (Ábalos) so that gave him “some papers.” At that time, they were already being followed by the agents, who devised a vehicle control device to intercept Joseba’s papers in the middle of the journey: three Ministry resolutions on the contracts, which were not public. Agents suspect that Koldo’s previous meetings served to obtain these documents. Joseba followed his plan and went to Ábalos’ house in Valencia. He came in with the envelope, he came out without the envelope. Three months later, everyone ended up arrested, except Ábalos.
