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Luceño, a cornered commission agent: alleged fraudster, forger and tax evader

2023-02-04T06:24:34.272Z


The judicial investigation broadens the fronts against Luis Medina's partner and already attributes four types of crime to him. The instructor plans to interrogate him on February 10


The investigation into the alleged fraud against the Madrid City Council with the sale of sanitary material in the worst of the pandemic, in which the commission agents Luis Medina and Alberto Luceño obtained almost six million euros, has opened unexpected doors.

After nearly a year of investigation, the investigations now dissect the figure of Luceño, who presented himself to Judge Adolfo Carretero as an experienced "agent" dedicated to exports, but who has revealed himself as a businessman with multiple shadows.

The Police found falsified documents in his house – including a CNI badge – and the Treasury has described how he hatched a corporate plot to defraud the Treasury.

The magistrate already charges him with four types of crime and will question him again on February 10.

More information

The Police conclude that the CNI documents found on the commission agent Alberto Luceño are false

The corporate plot.

The judge has expanded the focus on Luceño this week.

Carretero accused him on Monday of an aggravated crime against the public treasury.

In a report of almost 100 pages, to which EL PAÍS had access, the Tax Agency concludes that the commission agent created a company "

ex profeso

" in May 2020 (Takamaka Invest SL) to implement a "tax avoidance" mechanism.

According to the investigations, the suspect "pretended" that, instead of him, it was said company that provided its services to Leno, the company that allegedly supplied the sanitary material that would end up in the City Hall, so in July 2020 it invoiced the operation to through Takamaka and later declared it as income through the Corporation Tax.

However, the dates put Luceño on the ropes, as the Treasury has verified.

The sanitary material purchase and sale operations were carried out in March 2020 (at the worst of the pandemic) and the commission agents were paid between the end of that same month and April.

More than a month before Luceño created his new company, together with his wife and two of his children;

and almost four months before billing through Takamaka.

"It constitutes [that company] with a very clear purpose: to interpose it in the commercial relationship, pretending that it is the one that provides the intermediation services, with the aim of achieving a reduction in taxation," states the Tax Agency.

Based on the calculations of the Treasury, the judge points out that Luceño "stopped entering the public coffers" more than 1.3 million euros, "in relation to the IRPF (Personal Income Tax) of 2020 ” that he was to declare.

78 “versions” of a letter from Almeida.

The documentation intervened in the investigation is not without surprises.

During the searches of Luceño's house and company, the Police found a battery of official papers allegedly altered by him, "distorting their original content."

Among others, the agents found up to 78 "versions" of an alleged letter from the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, to facilitate the work of exporting products from China during the pandemic - which even "includes emblems of the Ministry of Health , Consumption and Social Welfare”—;

or multiple versions of two certificates issued by the Puerta de Hierro University Hospital and by the General Director of Emergencies and Civil Protection of the Madrid City Council.

In the latter case, Luceño is added as "official agent of the Government of China",

The judge decided this week to investigate these facts as an alleged crime of falsification of an official document.

Two versions of the alleged letter from the mayor to Luceño, included in a police report.

False CNI documents.

Earlier, in mid-January, the magistrate already decided to expand the investigation against Luceño and charge him with another crime of document falsification after false documents from the National Intelligence Center (CNI) were found during the search of his house.

The agents located a “CNI professional identity card” and a “plate”.

After analyzing them, they concluded that they were "entirely false".

"This [finding] has an analogical connection with other documents in the case and with the conduct that Luceño is being investigated, which seems to distort his activity and profession," wrote Carretero, who added: "The aforementioned document, a CNI card prepared in sight with a lot of similarity to the real one, it can be used to facilitate the commercial relations of the investigated with authorities or companies in Asia”.

Image of the CNI identification document seized on Luceño in the registry, according to the police report sent to the court.

The millionaire hoax.

The heart of the investigation deals with a crime of aggravated fraud.

The judge maintains that Medina and Luceño "deceived" the City Council to pocket almost six million euros in commissions with the sale of defective sanitary material (gloves, masks and covid tests) to the Consistory at the worst of the pandemic when this material was scarce in the world market.

According to the magistrate, the two agreed to inflate the costs and hid it from the Administration.

“The price of masks rose 60%;

that of gloves, by 81%;

and that of the tests, 71%, as a result of the commissions that they had agreed to ”, the instructor has influenced one of his resolutions, where he highlights that this crime “carries a penalty of up to eight years in prison ” .

The bleaching

“With the money from the commissions, Luceño paid for a stay of 60,000 euros in a luxury hotel;

He bought three exclusive signature watches valued at 42,450 euros;

seven luxury vehicles valued at 1.03 million euros, which he invoiced to the Takamaka company [...], also transferring 3.3 million to the account of the previous company with which he bought a house in Pozuelo de Alarcón ( Madrid) valued at 1.1 million...”.

With these words, Judge Carretero described the operations that he launched in the commission agent and that, in the opinion of the instructor, constitute an alleged crime of money laundering, punishable by "up to six years in prison."

Altered papers for banks.

Luceño was already charged in April 2022 for a first crime of documentary falsification, related to the papers that he and Medina presented to their financial institutions to justify the huge amounts of money that entered their accounts for the sale of material to the City Council.

Some documents that were falsified, according to the Police, the judge and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor.

In them, both presented themselves as "exclusive agents" of Leno, but the public prosecutor's office detected a multitude of inconsistencies: they are dated "Thursday, September 12, 2018", when that day was Wednesday;

They were apparently initialed almost two years before the operations under suspicion, despite the fact that Medina assured that he had never had a relationship with that Asian company before mediating in the sale for the Consistory;

The four crimes attributed to Medina

The judge also imputes four crimes to Luis Medina, brother of the Duke of Feria.

Although, in his case, all four have been awarded from the beginning of the investigation and the magistrate has not broadened the focus against him this year, unlike what has happened with Luceño.

The judge attributes to Medina the crime of fraud for the alleged deception of the City Council with the sale of sanitary material;

the one for laundering, for buying a sailboat with the money from the operation under suspicion;

and another for document falsification, due to the allegedly altered documentation that he presented to his financial institution for the amounts he entered.

In turn, he also accused him of a crime of seizure of assets for parting with part of his assets when he already knew that he was being investigated by the Prosecutor's Office, thus supposedly hiding it so that it would not be seized.

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Source: elparis

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