The Civil Guard general who did not want to retire and ended up accused of corruption

The General of the Civil Guard Francisco Espinosa, during his statement before the judge in the 'Mediator case'. SCREEN CAPTURE (SCREEN CAPTURE)

The General of the Civil Guard Francisco Espinosa Navas did not want to retire.

Doomed to retire due to age in the armed institute, he aspired to have then a position of "director of institutional relations" of a company with a salary of 5,000 euros per month and a card for protocol expenses.

This is what Espinosa himself said, during his statement on February 16, to judge María de los Ángeles Lorenzo-Cáceres to justify his links with the dismantled plot in the Mediator

, which promised businessmen to streamline European aid files or make it easier for them to obtain contracts in exchange for commissions and gifts.

This Thursday, almost three months after that appearance, the high command of the armed institute, who is accused of the crimes of bribery and criminal organization, has been provisionally released as the justice system considers that there is no longer any risk of him escaping or destroy evidence.

More information

The National Court releases the general of the Civil Guard involved in the 'Mediator case'

Espinosa's last active years in the Civil Guard were precisely a constant attempt to avoid his retirement.

He already achieved it to the limit in 2016, when the then Ministers of the Interior, Juan Ignacio Zoido -a Sevillian like him and with whom he was personally close-, and Defense, María Dolores de Cospedal, promoted him to Major General just five days before to go to the reserve.

This decision allowed Espinosa to remain active and occupy, first, the head of International Cooperation and, since 2017, the direction of the GAR-SI Sahel Project, a project financed by the European Commission in this area of ​​Africa in which four projects were awarded. contracts now under suspicion of being rigged by the plot of the

.

Finally, in January 2021, when he turned 65, the general retired from the Civil Guard, although even then he managed to stay five more months at the helm of the European project, as reflected in the payslips he received and which are in effect. The summary.

As Espinosa himself recounted before the judge, his relationship with the plot and, specifically, with the confessed mediator of it, Antonio Navarro Tacoronte, began "by chance in Valencia" in July 2020, when he was still active in the armed institute.

“One day when he was having dinner at a restaurant with some friends, we went out to the door of the restaurant to smoke a cigarette.

He [Navarro Tacoronte] was sitting at the next table and he told me 'how good it smells'.

I told him 'he's from the Canary Islands', and he tells me 'I'm from the Canary Islands too'.

They started a conversation, took a photo together, and the general gave Navarro his business card.

"Later he sent me a message telling me that his partner, Antonio Bautista [one of the businessmen investigated in the plot], was going to come from the Canary Islands to Madrid and was going to bring me a box of cigars to the airport."

A police report incorporated into the summary details that the high command allegedly joined the plot shortly after that meeting, in September 2020, and remained in it for approximately a year, until "the businessmen began to notice that despite having carried out the payments demanded did not see the promised result prosper”.

At that time, the investigations linked Espinosa with four businessmen and, above all, with the mediator.

The investigators conclude in their reports that the general's

was almost always the same: he received businessmen in his official office at the General Directorate of the Civil Guard, in Madrid, to "seduce" them from his ability to influence and, later, , he had lunch with them in a nearby restaurant where “sometimes” they gave him a present “as part of the

of the official [to facilitate his collaboration]”.

The police reports highlight that, after that first meeting, the businessmen increased "the expense of alleged bribes" to the general which, together with the payment of flights, hotels and other meals, included the delivery of cash and prepaid cards.

Aliases 'Dad' and 'Old Man'

Navarro assured in his judicial statement that Espinosa, to whom the plot referred to with the aliases of

and

, was "much more prudent" when it came to receiving "gifts" than the other alleged ringleader of the plot, the then deputy of the PSOE Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo,

, although he explained that this did not prevent the businessmen he promised to help from paying him all kinds of gifts.

Both the general and the former socialist parliamentarian have denied knowing each other and the investigations indicate that the alleged irregularities of one and the other had no connection beyond the mediator's participation in both.

Navarro also stated in court that the high command even asked one of the businessmen to hire a woman with whom he allegedly had a sentimental relationship as a salesperson, with a salary of 3,000 euros a month, and whom the high-ranking officer himself Mando referred to in his WhatsApp conversations with other members of the plot as "flying twat."

The mediator added that the general justified his intervention in the plot precisely in that "he had to look for an economic future because he was going to retire and he had to look for a future" both for him and for this woman.

In his statement, the mediator assured that he handed the general an envelope with money ―between 1,500 and 3,000 euros― every time they saw each other and that these funds were contributed by the businessmen.

In an audio incorporated into the summary, the high command is allegedly heard counting the bills that the mediator gave him.

In one of the letters that he presented in court to request his release, the high command denies his involvement in the plot and assures that everything is a "montage promoted, concocted, executed and used by Navarro Tacoronte himself" and that, in reality , what is behind "is a big scam" whose "only beneficiary" is this, while he presents himself and the businessmen involved as "harmed and victims."

In fact, the high command of the armed institute has affirmed since his arrest that he has not committed any irregularity.

“There has not been any businessman who has asked me for this, that or the other thing.

They haven't asked me to," he insisted to the judge during his February statement.

Two circumstances that appeared during the investigation play against this self-exculpatory version of the general: the discovery of 61,110 euros in bundles of bills found at his home in Madrid hidden in a shoe box and among his clothes, and an account opened in a bank Belgian who had not declared to the Treasury.

Espinosa tried to explain that the money came from inheritances, the sale of apartments and even a luxury watch, in addition to his salary as a civil guard: "I have earned a lot of money during my professional life," the high command highlighted before the judge .

Regarding the bank account, in one of the letters in which he requested his release, he assured that he opened it to receive his "salaries from the EU" as director of the project in the Sahel, although a police report states that, at least between January and in May 2021, his last pay slips for his work for the European Union, he did not receive them in that Belgian account, but in the one he had in Spain.

In fact, the judge of the National Court, José Luis Calama, in the order by which this Thursday he ordered his provisional release with precautionary measures, insists that there are "very solid indications" against the general who did not want to retire to keep him indicted for corruption.

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