The former head of the Local Police of El Puerto, Rafael Muñoz Leonisio, upon leaving the courts on January 17, 2024. Pedro Payán
Rafael Muñoz Leonisio never stopped smoking cigarillos in his office.
The Anti-Tobacco Law did not pass through him.
It could be said that few regulatory frameworks of the present democracy did it: he drove his car without insurance, he razed part of a pine forest without permission to set up some paddle tennis courts, he used the municipal tow truck to return retired cars to acquaintances and he used his networks to insult compulsively to members of the Government and the left in general.
The curious thing is that Muñoz smoothly combined this work life above the law for almost 40 years with his position as mayor and head of the Local Police of El Puerto de Santa María.
It was not until his retirement that he ended up arrested, accused of collecting bribes for the management of municipal parking lots.
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The police chief of El Puerto who insulted the Government during the pandemic, arrested for bribery
Extortion, bribery, embezzlement of public funds for personal use and influence peddling: the list of alleged corruptions for which the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police in Cádiz arrested Muñoz Leonisio this past Tuesday is long.
And that only refers to alleged illegalities committed in his last year, before retiring last November, when he turned 65.
With it, he dragged José Manuel CR, a technician from the municipal Infrastructure area, as a necessary cooperator in the crimes of bribery and negotiations prohibited to officials, according to the first stages of the investigation being directed by the Court of Instruction number 2 of El Puerto to instances of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office of Cádiz.
UDEF investigators believe that the former police chief used his position to collect illegal commissions from entities that last year took charge of the temporary parking lots created for festive events such as the Fair or the Puro Latino music festival.
“It is not a lot of money because they were not long awards, we are talking about a few thousand euros,” says a source close to the investigation.
Muñoz Leonisio also allegedly took advantage of his authority to mediate so that fines were withdrawn from family and friends and intervened so that his son could exploit a tourist train in the summer of 2023 that operated for a few weeks.
Added to this is the alleged use of the municipal crane “for private uses,” as the same source explains.
EL PAÍS has tried, without success, to contact the main investigator to obtain his version of the events.
Few in the City Council were surprised by the arrest of Muñoz Leonisio, although there have also been few who in his more than three long decades of service have dared to denounce his alleged excesses.
And the anecdote is so long that it is difficult to cover.
An official remembers the constant visits of businessmen to his office who, at the door of the headquarters, "started saying that he owed them money."
The socialist Ángel González, Councilor for Citizen Security between 2015 and 2019, remembers how he had to be reprimanded for advertising a training academy for opponents of local police with his corporate phone and for driving a private car without insurance, which he later changed for a municipal one. .
“The badge for him was a shield of protection.
They were very afraid of him […] There were those who said that when he retired his hair was going to fall out,” notes the same worker.
The former head of the Local Police arrested this Tuesday for bribery, Rafael Muñoz Leonisio (sixth from the right), poses next to the mayor of El Puerto de Santa María in an archive image.City Hall of El Puerto de Santa María
When Muñoz Leonisio joined as mayor of the El Puerto Local Police in the early 90s—after being a lieutenant in the Marine Infantry until 1984—it was sold as “a revolution,” explains the same source.
Friendly and pleasant at short distances, the enchantment lasted as long as it took for the first problems to arise.
At a cotillion party on New Year's Eve in 2000 plagued by irregularities, he ended up being identified as the agent who allegedly turned a blind eye to the excesses at the premises, although the investigation came to nothing, according to
Diario de Cádiz
.
Six years later, environmentalists denounced him for destroying some pine trees without permission to set up paddle tennis courts with a businessman friend, as one of the activists who was involved remembers.
After that feat, in the Headquarters he earned the nickname
Rancapino
(like the flamenco singer), which he added to his alias along with
Pringue
, due to his taste for gel.
Not even his trips with the crane are new.
In 2011, she let a councilor take her vehicle from the municipal depot without paying the corresponding fee after parking incorrectly.
He claimed that he was the authority.
During the pandemic, he did it again two more times, in this case with cars belonging to another local police officer and a civil guard.
“He told the tow truck to take the car out and take it to the owner's door,” explains the employee.
Due to these events, the union of municipal agents UPLBA denounced him in a case that is also being investigated by Court Number 2. It is precisely this union that caused the most headaches for Muñoz Leonisio - they also administratively denounced his drive to smoke cigarillos in the Leadership-.
In exchange, the boss filed charges against 12 of his workers who supported the union's protest by refusing to work due to the absence of pants, a battle that the police ended up winning in court.
But it was not until the years of the coronavirus and the mask when Muñoz Leonisio, dissatisfied with the management of the pandemic, came to the fore at the national level, in May 2020, for insulting the Government — he called the minister a “daughter of a bitch.” María Jesús Montero or “shitty communist” to Pablo Iglesias—on her social networks.
He demonstrated with a saucepan and the Spanish flag at the ready and was one of the 200 retired soldiers who signed the controversial manifesto against the Executive.
By then he was already plenipotentiary chief of the Local Police, after the death of the mayor in 2017 accidentally cleared the way for him.
The automatic promotion was so sudden that, after being absent from Headquarters for weeks in early 2018, a rumor spread among his subordinates that he was on leave due to anxiety.
He resolved the mystery with an email opened to the staff in April of that year in which he denied the major in a cocky tone: “I continue smoking my cigars, drinking my Ribera del Duero (two glasses a day), a couple of gin and tonics Rives Special when I go out on Sundays…”.
Now that he is retired, free and investigated, many in the City Council wonder how he was able to get out of so many troubles, after decades and six mayors of different political colors.
“He has always been involved, but the problem is that, in our case, we never had evidence, it was all rumors,” González excuses himself.
The current PP Government prefers to remain silent, although it remembers that they were the ones who removed him as chief, after they managed to obtain a new freely appointed position for mayor of the Local Police that was filled in February 2022. Although Javier Botella , from the local Unión Portuense party, reminds Mayor Germán Beardo of “the proximity” and “the collusion” that Muñoz Leonisio—a declared PP sympathizer—always had with the current local government.
With the political brawl mounted and with judicial investigations that could still end up with more defendants, the municipal worker who treated him is the one who perhaps best summarizes how Rafael Muñoz Leonisio managed to survive: “he moves very well in the mud.”
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