• Courts: Justice condemns a former UGT worker for uncovering the union's false invoices in Andalusia
  • Fraud.The judge imposes a bond to UGT of 40.7 million for the diversion of subsidies in Andalusia
  • Public funds. Processed in the UGT-A case denounce that they have been investigated as if they were "terrorists"

Nth attempt by the defendants in the so-called case of the false UGT-A invoices so that the judge shelves the judicial case and the trial against the former leadership of the union in Andalusia and its network of trusted providers is not held, that they were preparing allegedly false invoices to divert subsidies from the Andalusian Government and that the union could finance itself irregularly . On this occasion, they have used the recent conviction that is not yet final for revealing secrets against Roberto Macías, the former union worker who uncovered the plot, to try to overturn the case, as EL MUNDO has learned.

At the end of last April, the head of the Court of Instruction 9 of Seville, Juan Jesús García Vélez , issued an order to open an oral trial against the leadership of the Andalusian UGT federation during the years investigated for the diversion of subsidies. The judge sent to the bench 15 defendants -5 from the union and 10 suppliers- for the crimes of subsidy fraud and falsification of a commercial document and imposed a bond of 40.7 million euros on the union, as subsidiary civilian responsible, for the illegal use of public funds. That amount is the amount of public money allegedly defrauded.

Despite the progress of the investigation and the solid indications that weigh on the 15 prosecuted, the former treasurer of the union for 15 years, between 1998 and 2013, Federico Fresneda , has once again asked the investigating judge to file the case. Fresneda faces a request for a sentence from the prosecutor of 7 years in prison and a € 50 million fine.

The appeal presented by Fresneda, to which this newspaper had access, affirms that the leaks to the Macías media with "reserved information" about the union are "the direct or indirect origin of the evidence obtained illegally " in the investigation. During the judicial investigation, there were records at the UGT-A headquarters and the homes of some investigated, in addition to wiretapping.

For Fresneda, "none" of the evidence obtained has "any validity" because "all" it occurs after Roberto Macías leaked to the media documents that exposed the alleged fraud committed by UGT-A with public and millionaire subsidies.

Journalistic revelations

"If the media had not spread the amount of illegally leaked documentation, what the UCO [Central Operational Unit of the Civil Guard] called, as justification for requesting the court for its actions, would not have produced social alarm . Then, there would have been no wiretapping, no records, no arrests, no extensions of the secrecy of proceedings, "says the Fresneda appeal.

Among the irregularities uncovered by this newspaper include the open bar sprees at the fair in the UGT-A booth paid for with public money or the 700 counterfeit briefcases in Asia that the union gave to those attending a regional congress.

Roberto Macías worked at UGT-A for four years, between 2008 and 2012, as an administrative officer in the union's purchasing area, a key department in the alleged plot devised by the organization to divert subsidies. A judge in Seville sentenced Macías, in a sentence known on May 15, to two years in prison for revealing secrets, after revealing information about the alleged rigging of bills in the union.

In this way, the person who uncovered the scandal becomes, paradoxically, the first person convicted as a result of the corruption investigation that led to the resignation of the then General Secretary of UGT-A, Francisco Fernández Sevilla, and the replacement of all the top of the organization.

It is not the first time that Fresneda and other defendants request that the UGT-A case be closed. In December of last year, the former treasurer requested the nullity of the entire case because the accused were investigated "as terrorists." In his last resort, he uses this comparison again, claiming that the records were unmotivated and "exaggerated", since "it was not a crime of drug trafficking, white trafficking, arms trafficking, terrorism, homicide or murder ».

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Know more

  • UGT
  • Andalusia
  • UCO
  • Corruption

InterviewRoberto Macías: "I do not regret it. The bills I leaked served to prosecute a corrupt organization"

CourtsThe Justice condemns a former UGT worker for uncovering the union's false invoices in Andalusia

UGT-A case Corruption complainants demand the "immediate" transposition of the European directive that protects them after the conviction of Roberto Macías

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