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Politics The vice president of the Almería Provincial Council is arrested for irregular adjudications of sanitary material
At least
150,000 euros
in exchange for a contract of two million euros. That is the booty that the investigators of the Civil Guard's Central Operative Unit (UCO) believe that the third vice president of the
Almería Provincial Council
,
Óscar Liria
,
pocketed until just a few days ago
, for allegedly rigging the award of a contract for supply of medical supplies to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic that was awarded to a Barcelona company linked, in turn, to an organization dedicated to drug trafficking.
Liria is, since this Friday, in provisional prison, communicated and without bail by order of the magistrate of the Court of Instruction 8 of Barcelona,
María de los Ángeles Fernández
, who has supervised the investigation carried out by the UCO and who has allowed to uncover the first case of corruption linked to the coronavirus health crisis in Spain. Along with the former third vice president of the Almeria Provincial Council, the judge has sent the businessman
Kilian López
, sole administrator of
Azor Corporate Ibérica SL
, the company that benefited from the alleged fix, to
jail
, along with a third person who would have acted as an intermediary.
The 150,000 euros in commissions were found by the UCO agents in the searches they made of homes and social headquarters earlier this week, when the so-called Operation Lúa was carried out.
Specifically, the money was in several Liria homes in Almería, distributed in
envelopes
that contained, as confirmed by sources close to the case, between 6,000 and 10,000 euros.
Between Azor Corporate Ibérica and the already former high-ranking official of the Almería Provincial Council - he was dismissed after his arrest and expelled from his party, the PP - there is a family-type relationship, the sources consulted said, which initially ruled out that Liria was also involved in
Kilian López's
marijuana trafficking
businesses
.
Precisely, drug trafficking was the
origin
of this investigation, which began in 2020 and focused on an organization dedicated to the sale of marijuana that was distributed in Europe. At one point, a thread appeared that connected with the purchase of sanitary material against Covid in the Almería Provincial Council and the name of Óscar Liria appeared.
It was he who directly proposed to the provincial corporation the purchase of this material from Azor Corporate Ibérica in the worst of the pandemic, at the beginning of April last year, and for an amount close to two million euros.
The contract was formalized on April 8, 2020, when the expenditure of
1,999,886.24 euros
(plus VAT)
was approved
to purchase 500,000 FFFP2 masks, 15,570 protective coveralls, 500,000 nitrile gloves and transportation costs.
In total, just over two million euros.
The award was made
urgently
and the money was paid in advance upon the arrival of the merchandise, a practice that at that time was common given the absolute scarcity of this material in the markets, which had to arrive within five days.
Breached the contract
However, in addition to the irregularities in the award and the alleged collection of commissions, there is the circumstance that Azor did not deliver the material on time, one part delivered it
defective
and another simply never reached the hands of the Diputación de Almeria.
So much so that on June 1, the president of the Almeria Provincial Council,
Javier Aureliano García
, issued a
decree
to terminate the contract with Azor for breach of the company, when nothing was known about the corruption scandal that has broken out this week and that it has forced changes in its government team, in addition to provoking a political crisis and the creation of an investigation commission on contracts for sanitary material.
The UCO, for now, has only found irregularities in this award, but the sources consulted indicated that
other files
are being analyzed
.
But Azor Corporate Ibérica SL not only did business, supposedly corrupt, with the pandemic in Almería.
In addition, and this is stated in the commercial information to which
EL MUNDO
has had access
, it benefited from the aid provided by the central government so that companies could face the economic effects of the health crisis.
To be exact, it received a
guarantee
of 24,000 euros from the Official Credit Institute (ICO).
The
Lúa operation
has not only taken place in Almería, but has also been carried out in Valencia, Barcelona, Girona, Murcia and Palma de Mallorca, with numerous records and up to thirteen arrests in total, although only Liria, Kilian López and the figurehead have been sent to prison.
The rest have been released with
precautionary measures
to withdraw their passports, a ban on leaving the national territory and an obligation to appear every fifteen days in court, as reported by the
Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia
.
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