Interior dismisses the head of the Civil Guard in Santa Cruz de Tenerife for irregularities in barracks works

The Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Pérez, has agreed this Wednesday to dismiss Colonel José María Tienda Serrano, head of the Civil Guard in Santa Cruz de Tenerife since 2017, for "loss of confidence", as confirmed by sources to EL PAÍS of the armed institute.

The reason given by the Ministry of the Interior is the suspicion of his involvement in the alleged irregularities in the award of dozens of maintenance works in Civil Guard barracks that has been investigating, since the end of 2021, a court in Madrid.

In this case there are already two Civil Guard commanders charged.

One of them is Reserve Lieutenant General Pedro González Jarava, who was in charge of the General Support Subdirectorate of the armed institute when the events occurred.

Colonel Tienda's close relationship with the Canarian builder Ángel Tejera de León, alias

, implicated in this same summary and who, moreover, is mentioned in various police reports in the

due to his relationship with several defendants, including the General of the Civil Guard Francisco Espinosa Navas, the alleged ringleader of this corruption plot.

The audios incorporated into this case have also revealed the close friendship between the now dismissed colonel and General Espinosa.

According to sources from the armed institute, the decision to dismiss the colonel was made at the request of the head of the Civil Guard in the Canary Islands, considering that the various news items that related him to both cases of corruption were causing "the consequent discredit" for the institution. , in addition to the fact that "it disturbs the operation of the command and generates mistrust towards its work, regardless of the criminal or administrative significance that [the colonel's actions] may have."

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These same sources highlight that, in the investigation carried out by the Internal Affairs Service of the Civil Guard on the alleged irregularities in the awarding of dozens of painting and waterproofing jobs in facilities of the armed institute throughout Spain between the years 2008 and 2019, One of the commanderies that has the most tenders under suspicion is that of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, headed by the now dismissed colonel.

The contracts were of not very high amounts, but the total amount of all of them exceeds 3 million euros.

A good part of them, both in the Canary Islands and in other provinces, fell on two companies in which Tejera de León appears as sole administrator, Angrasurcor SL and Solocorcho SL

This builder also appears mentioned five times in the summary of the

, in which the presumed leaders are General Espinosa and former PSOE deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo,

.

All these mentions are in relation to a meeting that took place on November 4, 2020 at the Hotel Escuela de Tenerife.

In addition to Tejera de León and General Espinosa, the confessed intermediary of the plot, Antonio Navarro Tacoronte, attended that meeting;

the former general director of Livestock of the Canarian government, Taishet Fuentes, who is the nephew of Fuentes Curbelo;

and the businessman Antonio Bautista Prado.

The police reports relate the builder directly to the high command of the Civil Guard, which is the only one accused in the

who has entered prison.

Navarro Tacoronte secretly recorded his meetings that day with his mobile phone, audio files that are incorporated into the summary.

In one of them, recorded while the intermediary was going to the meeting at the hotel next to Espinosa, it is heard how the high command of the Civil Guard receives a call from Colonel Tienda, in which the general comments in a tone that denotes a close confidence between the two that he is "half drunk" and that later they will speak to a third person whom they identify by his first name, Luis.

As detailed in the police reports incorporated into the summary, the recording later includes the conversations held by the five participants in the meeting in which they talk about livestock and the installation of photovoltaic panels, two of the businesses in which the corrupt plot supposedly operated.

At one point in the talk, Tejera de León boasts of having 17 houses facing the sea and that ex-president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was supposedly interested in acquiring the "biggest" one.