• Corruption The husband (and brothers-in-law) of María Gámez: "unjust" enrichment in the shadow of the PSOE
  • The director of the Civil Guard resigns after her husband was charged in a corruption case and Marlaska says it is an "unfair but necessary" resignation

The investigators of the Udef (Central Unit of Economic and Fiscal Crime of the National Police) have in the spotlight the real estate assets accumulated by the marriage formed by the former general director of the Civil Guard María Gámez and Juan Carlos Martínez, businessman and former advisor in ministries and ministries of the Junta de Andalucía led by socialists.

Juan Carlos Martínez and his two brothers -Bienvenido and Manuel- have just been charged with embezzlement, prevarication and money laundering by the Court of Instruction 6 of Seville for a case of alleged corruption that derives from the public funds injected by the Junta de Andalucía in the Santana company at the time when the PSOE governed. The accusation of Juan Carlos Martínez caused María Gámez to present her resignation as general director of the Civil Guard on March 22.

María Gámez and her husband acquired three apartments between 2009 and 2012, which are now in the focus of the Udef, the police force that is carrying out the investigations directed by the Court of Instruction 6 of Seville. In a police report of October 2021, which this newspaper already reported, the Udef points out the following: "Mention must be made of the increase in assets detected in Juan Carlos Martínez, who acquires real estate properties between 2009 and 2012 for an amount exceeding 1,000,000 euros."

With mortgages

In the allegations presented in the court investigating the case, the lawyer of Juan Carlos Martínez stresses that the "alleged increase in assets" of which the Udef warns is a "tendentious" statement because he bought three homes – two of them at 50% with María Gámez – worth 645,000 euros, "not 1,000,000 euros". In addition, according to the investigated, he acquired them with mortgages worth 593,000 euros. "That is, more than 90% of what was purchased is subject to a loan, which if something shows, precisely, is that it did not have the economic capacity to acquire them," says the husband of the former director of the Civil Guard.

Juan Carlos Martínez bought on March 3, 2009 a flat in Madrid, on Sainz de Baranda Street, for 260,000 euros, which was mortgaged in the same amount. This is rented and "with this the monthly mortgage payment is paid," says the husband of the former director of the Civil Guard in his allegations to the court investigating the case.

Martínez acquired this apartment two months before the then Secretary of State for Territorial Policy, the socialist Gaspar Zarrías, hired him as chief of staff. Before holding this position, he was also an advisor to the then counselor Francisco Vallejo in the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Business and also in the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. Martinez's two former bosses have been convicted in the ERE corruption case. Vallejo has been in prison since last January and Zarrías is free because his sentence is disqualification.

Second line beach

On October 29, 2010, Juan Carlos Martínez and María Gámez bought, 50%, a house in Malaga on Calle Pacífico. It is one of the most expensive areas of the capital of Malaga, on the second line of the beach. It was acquired for 272,000 euros and mortgaged for 266,000 euros. This house was rented and sold shortly after by the couple to acquire a larger one, having had a child, according to Juan Carlos Martínez himself in the brief he presented in court on March 2, 2022, which this newspaper also reported.

The third floor was acquired by the former director of the Civil Guard and her husband in the same Pacific street in Malaga for 490,000 euros and a mortgage was constituted on it for an amount of 400,000 euros, according to the information provided by Juan Carlos Martínez himself.

In the period in which the couple acquired the three properties, the three companies of Juan Carlos Martínez and his two brothers investigated by the judge received very large amounts of companies to which the Junta de Andalucía, before, had given subsidies or aid. This is the case of Santana Motor or Laboratorio Rovi, which transferred more than half a million to Experience Management -of Bienvenido Martínez- and almost 130,000 euros to Job Management Liberty -of Juan Carlos Martínez- between 2008 and 2012, a period in which it received from the Idea Agency almost seven million.

The three companies of the brothers -Experience Management, Job Management Liberty and Be Make Create- were the instrument, always according to the investigations of the Udef, which they used to irregularly obtain public funds that circulated between the companies.

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  • UDEF
  • Civil Guard
  • Seville
  • Malaga
  • PSOE
  • Justice
  • Corruption