'Case Mediator': the corrupt network that fell for 2,575 euros

Corruption isn't always glamorous, but sometimes it falls into the tacky.

The joint operation of the National Police and the Civil Guard against the plot of the

, a network with its epicenter in the Canary Islands that was dedicated to charging commissions from businessmen, mainly in the livestock sector, has uncovered one of the latter.

The network, which asked for bribes in exchange for avoiding health inspections, expediting and unlocking European aid files or facilitating contracts, has fallen after a complaint for fraud of 2,575 euros.

Despite the fact that the two alleged leaders - a PSOE deputy and a retired Civil Guard general - received official salaries of over 5,000 euros per month, the amount of commissions they supposedly received were in most cases far from the five figures and the gifts ranged from simple cheeses to a box of cigars, going through the invitation to meals, trips, hotel nights and parties with prostitutes.

More information

This is how Mediator operated: the former PSOE deputy accused of corruption received other members of the plot in Congress

The key character.

The summary defines Antonio Navarro, considered to be the mediator of the plot, as a person with "extensive social skills."

Navarro is the nephew of a deceased socialist militant from the Canary Islands, a connection that facilitates his entry.

In the past, the mediator has been convicted of falsifying public documents, robbery with force, robbery with violence and intimidation, abandonment of family, fraud and driving without a driver's license.

Navarro began to maintain contact in September 2020 with what he is considered to be the ringleader of the political plot, former deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, alias Tito Berni.

Fuentes, who had already held a seat in Congress in two previous legislatures, was once again a deputy of the Congress of Deputies, in February 2020, occupying the seat of Elena Máñez,

who becomes Minister of Economy in the regional government.

The position that Fuentes Curbelo had occupied until he became a deputy, that of General Director of Livestock of the Canary Islands, was then assumed by his nephew Taishet Fuentes, also involved in the plot.

Fuentes Curbelo left the seat on February 14 when the plot was uncovered.

The seafood restaurant and the general.

Antonio Navarro had met the general of the Civil Guard, Francisco Espinosa, who would ultimately become the second ringleader of the plot, in a restaurant in Valencia in July 2020. The civil guard was having dinner, among other people, with José Santiago Suárez Esteve, a businessman linked to the drone business, was also charged in the case.

Shortly after, the mediator comes into contact with a second businessman, Antonio Bautista, whom the network will baptize as

, and whose interest in entering the plot will implicate him in the exchange of favors and bites.

Francisco Espinosa on the left, in a restaurant in Madrid with two others suspected of being involved in the plot, businessman José Santiago Suárez and Narco mediator Antonio Navarro, in a photo included in the summary.

'Menu' of prostitutes.

In the following months, the trips and meetings between the members of the plot take place with long evenings.

"At these parties - the summary maintains - the consumption of alcohol, cocaine, the hiring of prostitutes and the consumption of Viagra were protagonists."

They were paid for by businessmen, who spent between 3,000 and 3,500 euros per night, although some shot up to 11,000.

The summary includes a conversation via WhatsApp between Navarro and Fuentes Curbelo arranging the details for an evening in Madrid.

—What do you want to eat? Fuentes Curbelo asks Navarro

"Something in the area, right?"

[…] What do you say?

What parking is near the hotel?

Because eating can be interpreted in many facets, eating… Antonio [Bautista]'s son of a bitch is here, he's laughing.

Come on tell me.

We're going over there.

"Come on and we'll get out of here."

Navarro then responds with seven photos of prostitutes.

And in an audio he tells her: "The menu for today, okay?"

"Flying pussy".

General Espinosa asked one of the businessmen, whom he received in his official office of the General Directorate of the Civil Guard, to hire a woman with whom he allegedly had an affair as a salesperson, with a salary of 3,000 euros per month. sentimental relationship, and to which the high command himself referred to in his WhatsApp conversations with other members of the plot as "the flying pussy".

Navarro assured the judge that the general precisely justified his intervention in the plot by saying that "he had to look for an economic future because he was going to retire [he retired in January 2021] and he had to look for a future" both for himself and for this woman.

Socialist dinner in Ramses.

The former socialist deputy, the mediator and one of the businessmen have dinner at the Ramsés restaurant in Madrid on October 21, 2020. "Table for fifteen people," Navarro warned that day in a WhatsApp message.

“Only people from the socialist party.

Those of Vox, nor Podemos, nor dragged Catalans cannot enter, ”he jokes.

The deputy of the PSOE Juan Bernardo from behind half naked with a prostitute and the confidant

The cheesemaker

The plot was looking for businessmen with problems with the Administration to offer to solve them.

Thus, at the beginning of November 2020, they discover that a Canarian cheesemaker, Alberto Montesdeoca, has been fined 74,099 euros by the general management, headed by Fuentes Gutiérrez, the deputy's nephew.

This communicates it to the mediator, who offers himself to the sanctioned person to save him from the debt.

Within the strategy, Navarro presents Montesdeoca to the socialist deputy, on November 9 in Fuerteventura and, a day later, he travels with the cheesemaker to Madrid to introduce him to the general, whom they visit in his official office.

Marco Antonio Navarro Tacoronte and businessman Alberto Montesdeoca García, during the visit to the chapel of the General Directorate of the Civil Guard on November 12, 2020.

The 'card'

General Espinosa supposedly receives gifts such as a box of cigars and cheese, but he also asks for prepaid cards, which can be used without revealing the identity of the user.

On November 12, 2020, this conversation took place between the high command of the Civil Guard and the mediator.

— But I do work with you and you think you have to give me something, well, you'll give me… […] Or you leave me that little expense card, that one, the good one….

—The Post Office, I have one of those, I have the post office card, it doesn't have a name, it doesn't have anything...

General Francisco Espinosa Navas, before a flag and with a box of cigars given by a member of the plot, on September 1, 2020.

Nerves and bills.

Despite the payments to the organization, the Montesdeoca cheesemaker is forced to make a payment of 45,755 euros to the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF).

The cheesemaker gets nervous and claims, at least, that they issue invoices for about 30,000 euros.

In the following weeks, the mediator Navarro continues to demand money from Montesdeoca.

New signing.

The last of the businessmen recruited, Raúl Gómez Rojo, contacted the organization in February 2021 with the intention of settling in the Canary Islands with his business in the photovoltaic sector and obtaining tax benefits through deputy Fuentes Curbelo.

He will try, in turn, to get contracts through the general.

Visit to the Congress of Deputies of the businessman José Suárez Esteve (left) on February 3, 2021, together with the then deputy and accused José Bernardo Fuentes.

Party in front of the sea.

A good part of the defendants —Espinosa, Fuentes Gutiérrez, Navarro or the businessman Gómez Rojo, among others— celebrate a party in February 2021 at the NH Imperial Playa hotel in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in which cocaine is not lacking, according to summary photos.

The hiring of prostitutes is still common.

The former General Director of Livestock of the Government of the Canary Islands, Taishet Fuentes, at a party at the NH Imperial Playa hotel in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on February 24, 2021.

you suspect

The businessman José Santiago Suárez Esteve, who is called

, begins to fear that the money he is delivering "is not reaching a good port", as the investigation affirms, for which reason he demands that the money be returned to him.

That night, write the following WhatsApp to the mediator: "Antonio, I asked you for the money on Thursday night, it's Sunday and I haven't received it... I don't know what's happening, this four-day trip I've seen you for an hour, of everything what you told me was going to happen, aid, sale of drones, etc., nothing [sic] happened, don't make me think badly, business is business but playing with my children's bread is NOT”.

“Complicated” management.

The nephew

Taishet Fuentes admits to Navarro in March 2021 in a message that "the Alberto [Montesdeoca] thing is very complicated."

Despite this, the organization continues to ask the cheese businessman for money for his efforts.

The beginning of the end.

On May 11, 2021, the businessman Raúl Gómez and the mediator speak by phone.

“No, no… Tomorrow, well, he looks, tomorrow we'll make it very clear, because I'm fed up.

Hours and hours talking on the phone to get nothing out, so tomorrow we say it very clearly.

Around those dates, Navarro continues to ask Montesdeoca for money until, finally, he writes him a message on July 15, 2021: “You have deceived me.

I have to return everything."

Visit to the Congress of Deputies of Raúl Gómez Rojo (left) on April 28, 2021.

The complaint.

The then Sports Councilor of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Ángel Luis Pérez (PSOE), denounced Navarro in December 2021 for an alleged fraudulent use of a card with various charges totaling 2,575 euros.

In this complaint, he led the mediator to have to hand over his two mobile phones, whose memories treasured the documents, photographs and audios that have uncovered a corruption plot with very little glamor.

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