The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, in an act on June 20. AFP7 via Europa Press (Europa Press)
The Madrid City Council has taken more than a year to provide the Investigating Court Number 30 of the capital, which is investigating a second scam with the sale of defective masks to the Consistory in the worst of the pandemic, the receipt that proves that a second payment of 1.25 million euros to the company Sinclair and Wilde, based in New York and headed by Philippe Haim Solomon, a man whom the Spanish police considered untraceable.
Until now, according to the summary opened in March 2021, the magistrate Jorge Israel Bartolomé only considered proven a first installment, also of 1.25 million, based on the documentation provided by the Municipal Police itself.
But this week the municipal government of José Luis Martínez-Almeida has given him the document that proves a second payment.
On April 29, EL PAÍS revealed the existence of this new bank receipt, dated April 14, 2020. This document was incorporated into another different summary: the one opened in the Investigating Court 47 of Madrid for the alleged fraud perpetrated by businessmen Luis Medina and Alberto Luceño, who pocketed millionaire commissions for selling sanitary material to the City Council in the first phase of the covid crisis.
For the opposition, this second payment order is key because it underlines that the damage to the public coffers by the
Sinclair case
would rise to 2.5 million and because, in their opinion, it shows the lack of diligence of the Almeida government to pursue to these alleged scammers.
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A bank receipt confirms the second payment to the other alleged scammer from the Madrid City Council
The chronology of events is essential to understand this case and the battle it has provoked within the Consistory between the PP and the leftist parties.
On March 23, 2020, after confinement was decreed, the City Council gave the green light to purchase half a million face masks from Sinclair and Wilde for 2.5 million euros.
Only one day later, on the 24th, the first payment was made for 1.25 million —half the price agreed for the merchandise—, according to a first payment order made by Bankinter and incorporated into the report that the Municipal Police sent to the Court Number 30 in March 2021, when the scam was reported.
However, among the papers provided at that time, the second receipt, dated April 14, did not appear.
This second payment was issued after seeing "irregularities" in the purchase operation, according to the Police.
On April 7, the commercial and financial director of the Municipal Funeral Services Company (SFM), through which the masks were purchased, sent an email to the bank to request the "retrocession of the transfer made for an amount of 1 .25 million euros” —related to the payment of March 24—.
According to the City Council, these "irregularities" detected had nothing to do with the quality of the masks, which had not yet arrived, but with "irregularities" derived from "delays" in shipping.
Among the new documentation sent this week by the Consistory to Court Number 30, to which EL PAÍS has had access and among which is the "proof of the second transfer made on April 14, 2020 for an amount of 1,250 ,000 euros (50%)”, the Government of Almeida also includes a letter dated March 28 of that year sent by Solomon, where he states the “impossibility” of the 500,000 masks arriving on the date indicated due to “problems of force majeure ”.
The City Council finally received the material on April 23 of that year, as certified by the general director of Emergencies, Enrique López Ventura.
Subsequently, on May 4, the Director of Operations of the Municipal Emergency Plan denounced in writing that, after analyzing the masks, "there is sufficient evidence to assume that they do not meet the technical requirements, or the Spanish or European regulations."
Thereafter, attempts were made to contact Philippe Haim Solomon for months without success, and the Municipal Police initiated an investigation, which was sent to the Court in March 2021.
Often, he opened the case, but filed it in July of last year due to the impossibility of knowing Solomon's whereabouts.
However, on June 3, 2022, the magistrate reopened the investigations after receiving a new report indicating that the businessman resides in England.
City Hall in person
The existence of this second scam was not known until it was revealed by EL PAÍS on April 14 of this year, after the
Medina and Luceño case
came to light .
On April 28, two opposition parties (PSOE and Más Madrid) requested his appearance in the
Sinclair case
as a popular accusation and the reopening of the investigation, to which Podemos would later join.
The City Council did not request the personification of him as a victim until May 10.
Two days later, the Municipal Funeral Services Company would do the same, according to the summary.
Finally, upon reopening the case on June 3, Judge Jorge Israel Bartolomé ordered the Consistory and the SFM to deliver “all the documentation related to the contracting of the group of masks under investigation, including an authentic copy of the administrative files, as well as emails or similar communications, exchanged in the management of the operation, negotiation, completion of said operation, or subsequent claims;
formalized contract and control actions by the municipal intervention or other internal or external bodies”.
This newspaper then asked the City Council why it had not already provided the magistrate with the receipt for the second payment, to which the local Administration replied that it had until June 27 to provide it.
Precisely that day,
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