Those in charge of the organization Taula del Tercer Social Sector Sitges-Garraf were yesterday released on bail after spending two days in the dungeons detained by the National Police. The investigative court number 8 of Vilanova i la Geltrú ordered their release after both were arrested in an anti-corruption operation for having benefited from alleged irregular subsidies from Sitges City Council. In the operation, the mayor of the municipality, Aurora Carbonell, from ERC, and eight municipal officials were also arrested, who were released hours after they left the municipal offices in handcuffs, investigated for crimes of prevarication, embezzlement fund and document falsification.
The arrested, who were brought before the court yesterday, are a couple who created a social entity that carried out services for the City Council through the awarding of grants and minor contracts. The investigation, which began in May 2022, has found indications that the detainees used the public funds they received from the City Council for private use. In five years they received 600,000 euros.
In their court statement they accepted their right not to testify. The judge, in the interlocutory in which she justified the police operation, pointed out that the City Council “divided the amount of the contract to adjust it to the quantitative limit of the minor contract”, “disregarded the principles of publicity and free competition that they must be present in administrative recruitment” and he stressed “that the services were always awarded in favor of the chosen professionals themselves”. In addition, the judge indicates that the organization’s managers provided “false documentation” to justify the granting of the subsidies.
The City Council of Sitges defended in a statement that they detected the irregularities and from that moment “they stopped the subsidies, the files were reviewed and the process was started to return the subsidies that were not fully justified”.
