The plot uncovered by Anticorruption, which has Koldo García as its main axis, sought help from senior officials of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma) in recent months, already with Óscar Puente at the head of the portfolio, to try stop tax inspections that could end up uncovering the box of thrones. Since November 2023, nerves surfaced after one of the businessmen was summoned by a tax inspector. The tension was maximum for two reasons. The first, because if they were discovered, the Treasury would claim 2.6 million euros from them, which meant the closure of the company Soluciones de Gestión. And the second, more dangerous, is that they feared that during the inspection open to Víctor de Aldama, president of Zamora C.F., he would end up revealing the scams they would have organized during the time of José Luis Ábalos as minister.
This is how Juan Carlos Cueto explains it, one of the masterminds of the plot and who kept the most money from public funds – 16.9 million euros in profit – with the contracts for masks at State Ports, Adif, the Ministry of the Interior, and the health services of the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands. “They will ask him”, says Cueto, “about Aldama’s appearance before the AEAT, for me, for Angola, for Ábalos, for the president of the Spanish Government, for the Minister of Defense, for Delcy, for the suitcases… for everything”, includes a conversation that appears in the summary to which he has had access.
They feared that Aldama could end up involving them in other more complicated criminal matters. Cueto is on trial for bribery in Angola. For this reason, the contracts that the National Court is now investigating were with a company whose name does not appear, although he is really the ultimate beneficiary. Another fear was that the true reasons why Ábalos received Venezuelan Minister Delcy Rodríguez when she made a stopover in Madrid in 2020 would end up being made public, despite being forbidden to set foot on European territory due to EU sanctions against Maduro.
In the last months before the arrest carried out by the Civil Guard on February 20, Koldo, former adviser to Ábalos in Transports, had moved away from Aldama because he could be “radioactive”, which for the investigators means that they believed what they knew about the research.
For this reason, although since Koldo left the ministry after the impeachment of Ábalos in July 2021, the relationship between them had cooled, that reactivated their contacts. Some days they had as many as six calls. The nerves at the flower of the skin. The administrative inspection in Aldama could end up bringing them down 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 was awarded, in the middle of the pandemic, contracts for more than 50 million euros for masks. Even if Íñigo de Rotaeche was the SG starter, Cueto was actually there. One of the investigators’ evidence is that the companies of the Cueto group, SG, and other companies linked to the plot had the same tax address. 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 reports from the UCO Cueto asked Koldo to mediate with Abalos and people from the ministry to stop the inspection following the contracts signed with the Balearic Government during the time of Francina Armengol (PSOE), today president of the Congress of Deputies. In a conversation, Cueto explains to Rotaeche the favors he is asking “from his neighbor”, with reference to Koldo. “It’s a fucked up issue, but you can work to make them forget the executive issue. Your neighbor has told me that he will also try to touch the others, that he also has a very good relationship with them.” In this context, always according to the researchers, Koldo García would have said that he had relations with people from the PP who at that time exercised the presidency of the Balearic Islands, and also with high officials of the Ministry of Transport, with whom, despite the fact that it had been three years he was out of the ministry, he continued to maintain a relationship with it. The researchers relate this conversation to a meeting on November 2 with the current undersecretary of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda – high-ranking Mitma official –; ten minutes later with the director of Emfesa – state trading company linked to Mitma, and hours later with the general director of conservation and maintenance at Adif.
After those three meetings, Koldo ordered his brother – who had also been placed in the ministry – to stay with “José” (Ábalos) to deliver “some papers”. At that moment 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 resolutions from the ministry on contracts, which were not public. Agents suspect that Koldo’s previous meetings served to obtain those documents. Joseba followed his plan and went to Ábalos’ house in Valencia. Came in with the envelope, came out without the envelope. Three months later, they were all arrested, except Ábalos.
