The former president of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, upon her arrival at the Autonomous Executive Committee of the PP in Madrid, on March 4.A.
Pérez Meca (Europa Press)
The sword of Damocles hangs this spring over the Madrid PP, also besieged in recent weeks by scandals in the purchase of medical supplies during the pandemic.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has been working for more than five months on the report of definitive conclusions on the line of investigation of
the Púnica case
focused on the alleged box b of the regional party during the stage of Esperanza Aguirre, former president of the Community (2003-2012).
This document will mark a turning point in some complex investigations, which began eight years ago at the National High Court, and where the investigating judge Manuel García-Castellón awaits to decide whether to prosecute the former conservative leader, as well as the numerous charges of the formation who remain indicted.
The vision that the public ministry throws on this part of the instruction - which puts the spotlight on how the PP took advantage of its institutional power and its absolute majorities to allegedly finance itself irregularly and perpetuate itself in the Government - will complete the puzzle of the corruption that nested in the region at that time, to which three other plots also point: the
Lezo cases
(with former president Ignacio González as the main defendant);
Gürtel
(where former counselor Alberto López Viejo has already been sentenced to more than 27 years in prison) and
Ciudad de la Justicia
(where former vice president Alfredo Prada, pending trial, faces a prosecutor's request for eight years in prison).
With the Madrid PP overwhelmed in the last month by the investigations opened into the sale of medical supplies to the Administration during the pandemic —which have designated the brother of the current regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, as a commission agent;
and as an intermediary to a cousin of the mayor of the capital, José Luis Martínez-Almeida—, the announced letter from the Prosecutor's Office on Púnica will delve even deeper into the wound.
Above all, with a view to the municipal and regional elections of May 2023. According to legal sources, there is no official date set on the horizon for the delivery of the report to Judge García-Castellón, which must first pass through Alejandro Luzón's desk Chief Prosecutor for Anti-Corruption.
In this document, the Prosecutor's Office will list all the "evidence collected during the investigation" and, as indicated to the magistrate at the end of last October, a "reasoned, motivated and individualized report" will be prepared on all the natural and legal persons who remain under investigation. suspicion.
Of course, the key element, which is awaited with expectation by all the parties involved, is whether the Public Prosecutor's Office considers that it has sufficient evidence to propose that Esperanza Aguirre be sent to the bench.
An option that, according to different sources, is very complicated, since none of her subordinates has indicated it with solid evidence despite the fact that there is multiple evidence of corruption in the three organizations that she directed (Autonomous Government, PP of Madrid and Fundescam ).
Regardless of whether it is proposed to judge the highest authority of the PP of Madrid and of the Community during the era under suspicion, the report of the Prosecutor's Office will draw the general framework of the alleged corruption that nested in the regional party and in the regional government during the Aguirre era.
The investigation has revealed that, like the training at the national level, the Madrid subsidiary allegedly had a b-box - which was led by the regional treasurer, Beltrán Gutiérrez, who has not fired upwards in all these years - and with financing mechanisms irregular, through entities such as Fundescam (Foundation for the Economic and Social Development of the Autonomous Community of Madrid) and donations from businessmen.
But Punica is much more.
The macro summary on this plot, with 12 different lines of investigation, constitutes a complex portrait of the enormous irregularities detected in the Madrid Administrations.
With Aguirre's former adviser and former Secretary General Francisco Granados as the main piece of the corrupt network, the investigators describe "fraudulent urban actions", illegalities in the construction of infrastructures, rigging in public contracts and online reputation work... Just counting the five pieces of the case where an indictment order has already been issued, it has been proposed to try 10 former mayors of the PP of Madrid —also one of the PSOE and another of a local party— and there are 11 municipalities of the community with processed charges.
Besides,
The Criminal Chamber of the Court, which in March rejected numerous appeals filed by those already prosecuted to try to stop their trials, speaks openly of the existence of an alleged "corrupt plot" to "get irregular awards in various local corporations" , where gifts were given to mayors, councilors and officials.
Luceño, a new link with the past
The scandal of the commission agents of the Madrid City Council has brought the
Púnica case back
under the spotlight.
The name of Alberto Luceño, one of the two businessmen investigated for charging millionaire commissions with the sale of sanitary material to the City Council of the capital during the worst phase of the pandemic, is linked to one of the companies that the National Court highlighted as part of the alleged framework used by the PP in Madrid to irregularly finance itself in the 2011 elections, when Esperanza Aguirre renewed her absolute majority.
Luceño, who was never charged with this plot, was seized between 2012 and 2013 by the European School of Management and Business (Eude), which the investigators pointed out as part of the network of nine interposed companies that was used to move money.
In addition, as Infolibre
advanced
, the treasurer of the Madrid PP, Beltrán Gutiérrez, maintained a regular relationship with Óscar Sánchez, administrator of Eude until 2015. During their investigations, the agents seized a folder called "Marrones Alberto Luceño".
In statements to different media, the current management of the Eude completely disassociated itself from the activities of its previous owners.
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