The president of the PP+C's parliamentary group,

Carlos Iturgaiz

, has sent the Lehendakari Urkullu a dozen questions about

the million-euro fraud in

Lanbide

that have remained unanswered.

Questions shared by citizens and by the employees of the Basque Employment Service about the existing control mechanisms, the role of the Ertzaintza or the increase in fraud.

Urkullu has limited himself to acknowledging that "fraud is always serious" while the Vox parliamentarian Amaia Martínez directly pointed to the Ertzaintza commissioner and "liaison" Juan Carlos Rioja for not having investigated the first indications of the case.

Neither Urkullu nor Erkoreka have clarified why ON managed

from 2008 to 2021 to

collect more than one million euros in social aid using up to 62 false identities.

Neither the decalogue of specific questions used by Iturgaiz to clarify this million-dollar fraud nor Martínez's direct complaint about Commissioner Rioja's attitude have allowed Lehendakari Urkullu and Security Councilor Erkoreka to provide relevant information on what is already known.

The Immigration Brigade of the National Police ended last March with a fraud allegedly committed by ON for almost 14 years after an investigation that began in mid-February 2022. Before, in mid-December, the commissioner of the Ertzaintza Juan Carlos Rioja, who acts as a "liaison" with Lanbide, ruled out investigating the first signs detected by workers and ordered them to file a complaint at the police station.

This internal information in the hands of the National Police made it possible to arrest ON, a 41-year-old Senegalese citizen, and 22 other people who provided cover for him.

Iturgaiz asked Urkullu from the gallery at the plenary session of the Basque Parliament.

Iturgaiz has lamented that Lanbide is a "strainer".

"Blind in Lanbide and in Osakidetza and one-eyed in Security", the leader of the PP has summarized about the failures in the Basque Government that has discovered this fraud.

The Lehendakari has not responded to any of these questions and has limited himself to acknowledging the seriousness of the fraud and announcing that the reform of the social assistance law incorporates an "inspection unit and more controls".

Faced with the avalanche of questions from Iturgaiz, the Lehendakari has defended the role of emigrants against the "stigma" of holding them responsible for fraud, although Iturgaiz had previously made it clear that it does not matter whether the person who cheats is "Senegalese, Bilbao or Swedish".

The request for political responsibilities has gone further with the request of

Amaia Martínez (Vox)

to Erkoreka to clarify why Commissioner Rioja did not act after learning of the first signs with three passports forged by the fraudster.

Martínez has emphasized that "the government has lacked the truth" when Vice President Mendia assured that the National Police had been investigating this case for 10 years and has demanded the dismissal of Rioja, "a commissioner put to the finger" with diffuse functions within Lanbide after the agreement signed in 2014 and a unique protocol that expands the functions of the "link" signed by Gervasio Gabirondo (Ertzaintza) and Borja Belandia (Lanbide) in 2018.

Martínez has warned Erkoreka that if Rioja is not dismissed, it will be proven that the Vice-Lehendakari himself will guarantee that the Ertzaintza does not investigate the signs of fraud detected in the Basque employment offices.

Erkoreka has clung to the fact that there are "formal complaints with verified data" about these signs without denying that they were communicated to Rioja in December and that he got out of the way.

A month and a half later, the National Police began to investigate the same evidence without prior complaint.

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