The agents of the UCO of the Civil Guard who found the documents that gave rise to the Erial case, known as the “Syrian papers”, have defended the actions carried out in the registry where that documentation was seized, in which from the first moment They saw possible money laundering and suspicions of rigging.
This has been revealed in the seventh session of the trial, in which, among others, the former president of the Generalitat and former minister with the PP Eduardo Zaplana is being judged for the alleged bribes in the awards of the Valencian ITV and wind farms, and which began the testimonial phase this Friday.
The agents have reported the casual location of these papers during a search related to another major judicial case, the Imelsa case, carried out by the former manager of the public company of the Provincial Council of Valencia Marcos Benavent, a self-proclaimed ‘money junkie’.
These are three documents where, according to the investigators, a possible collusion was glimpsed in the awarding of certain public concessions of the Wind Plan and the ITV in favor of companies linked to the Sedesa group, of the Cotino family clan (headed by the deceased former general director of the Police, former vice president of the Generalitat and former president of Les Corts Valencianes, Juan Cotino), for which, according to the UCO, illicit commissions of 6.4 million euros were paid.
In the trial session held this Friday, four UCO agents responsible for this investigation testified as witnesses, who explained that they requested the records after seeing how relatives of Marcos Benavent transferred documentation from his home in Benigànim and a store in Cofrentes. to his lawyer’s office in Valencia.
It was precisely in the registry of that office where the papers that gave rise to the Erial case were found, but which were confiscated by the agents responsible for the investigation when they initially considered that they could be related to the Imelsa case.
Both the head of the operation and the investigating agent, the head of the registration device and an agent who analyzed the documentation have indicated that it was not until the detailed analysis of the seized documentation that they realized that these papers had no relationship with Imelsa.
They are known as “Syrian papers” because they were given to Benavent in 2012 by a person of Syrian origin named Imad, who said he had found them “abandoned” in an envelope around 2007 in a home where he lived in rental regime, whose owners were between 1998 and December 2006 Zaplana and his wife.
The agents have stated that these papers spoke of numerous companies and legal entities and, according to the civil guard who analyzed them, he was struck by the fact that they show intentionality in relation to wind projects, ITVs and magnetic resonance imaging. .
“They suggested a possible fix or intention with these processes,” he said when asked by Zaplana’s lawyer, and added that he was also alerted by the references that there were about shares of money going to Luxembourg, a country used to store funds in these schemes. “, as stated by another colleague.
One of the agents who intervened in the search, head of the operation, has indicated that from the documentation seized and, once the data, companies, awards and financial amounts were analyzed, “the possibility of money laundering was deduced.” “At that time I had been dedicating myself to economic research for 12 years and documentation like this, for me, meant the possibility of money laundering,” he added.
“There was talk in the documentation – he added – of two public bidding procedures, the names of different companies, companies in Luxembourg and financial amounts appeared… This possibility of money laundering absolutely existed,” he insisted. “It is my opinion as group leader and because I have handled different corruption cases but I did not sign the judicial document,” he clarified.
For his part, another UCO agent who participated in the entry and search of Benavent’s lawyer’s office has testified and has indicated that the operation was carried out “without incident.” He explained that it was the same lawyer who showed them the boxes that Benavent’s relatives had taken to the office with documentation.
The trial will continue next Wednesday, April 24, with the testimony of other civil guards and businessman Fernando Belhot.
