Manuel Marraco Madrid

Madrid

Updated Sunday, February 25, 2024-01:24

  • 'Koldo Case' Sánchez warns that he will be "relentless" against corruption "no matter who falls" after the plot involving Ábalos' advisor: "He who does it pays"

The

Delorme operation

has led to the arrest of around twenty people and has surrounded another: the former Minister of Transport, former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE and today national deputy José Luis Ábalos.

The investigation is not yet in the phase of determining whether action will be taken directly against him or he will be left out - at least criminally - of a corruption case that at least germinated alongside him.

The judge of the

National Court

handling the case could not accuse

Ábalos

, who as a parliamentarian is qualified before the

Supreme Court

.

When the investigation against the rest of those investigated is concluded, the judge must decide whether to request the intervention of the High Court.

In a case of which only part has come to light, these are the elements that so far indicate that the former minister will end up appearing before a judge.

THE RIGHT HAND

The complaint that the Prosecutor's Office filed in September at the National Court was directed against seven people.

Number one on the list was

Koldo García Izaguirre,

who was, of all people, the one who had the closest proximity to the ministry from which the wasted public money had come.

More specifically, with

Ábalos

himself , whom he had accompanied for years as an escort, driver and trusted man.

Added to the very close personal relationship was Koldo's triple appointment as advisor to the minister, as advisor to

Renfe

and as a member of the

State Ports Governing Council.

The last two charges emerge as especially significant when it is verified that the first contracts under suspicion and the largest were agreed precisely by Puertos del Estado (20 million) and Adif, the railway infrastructure manager (12.5 million).

The review of Koldo

's telephone calls

by the Civil Guard reveals contracts with those who managed the files for the purchase of masks in both organizations.

THE PUNCTURE

A telephone intervention points to the participation of

Ábalos

in subsequent maneuvers to favor Soluciones de Gestión, the company that had benefited from the contracts.

The Civil Guard tapped the cell phones of the main people involved and on December 4, they captured this conversation between a key businessman in the operation,

Juan Carlos Cueto,

and another of the accused, Íñigo Rotaeche.

«Cueto calls Íñigo, to whom he comments: 'this was a favor that your neighbor (Koldo) was asking... him and his former boss... and it seems that the other one said yes... because he "They have given another favor in return."

Given Koldo García's career

, Ábalos

would be the "former boss."

This is stated by the judge in Thursday's resolutions in which he agreed to the provisional release of four detainees.

The conversation is one of many in which those investigated addressed how to succeed in the inspection that the Treasury had underway on Management Solutions.

THE FOUNDATIONAL JOURNEY

The socialist deputy can also be directly linked to another detainee.

Investigators set the starting point of the plot on a trip to

Mexico

in February 2019. At that time Ábalos was

Minister of Transportation

and made an official trip to the

Oaxaca

region .

As always, Koldo accompanied him.

But in the delegation that left Spain was the other businessman who presented himself as an honorary consul and to whom investigators grant an essential role in the plot: Víctor de Aldama, another of the detainees who appeared at the National Court on Thursday.

The

Central Operational Unit (UCO)

gives great importance to the trip because it involves contact between

Aldama

and

Koldo

, from which the relationship that resulted in public contracts would emerge.

But Aldama didn't just meet Koldo.

Also to the minister himself, as Ábalos

himself

has recognized these days.

"I met him in Mexico in a meeting with the mayor of Oaxaca and another with a senator," said the socialist deputy in Cuatro.

RUSH

Anti-corruption maintains that the ministerial order signed by José Luis Ábalos to buy masks from Soluciones "evidence a prior agreement" between the company "and the public Administration."

The award would therefore not be the result of a file, but of an external agreement between the ministry and those who would reap the benefits.

"The period of time between the publication of the two orders from

MITMA

[the ministry] and the awards by

Puertos del Estado

and

ADIF

was practically non-existent," says the Prosecutor's complaint.

On March 20, 2020, the order regulating the acquisition was issued.

It is published on the 21st and that same Saturday it is awarded to Soluciones.

Added to this is that on the 16th Soluciones had already reached business agreements to prepare the delivery of material that had not yet been ordered and about which, in theory, there was no public news.

The investigators were on notice: "I know who they are, how they are, where they are"

The investigators knew they were on their trail.

Firstly, the requests for documentation from the Civil Guard and the inspection opened by the Treasury allowed them to know that their business was being examined after the PP's complaint in Anti-Corruption.

But there is more.

The UCO detected that the investigated Rogelio Pujalte alerted Koldo García.

"In the conversation between Koldo and Rogelio on 02/03/24," explains the judge, "Rogelio warns Koldo not to use the Telegram instant messaging application on his mobile devices, to which Koldo replies that he has never used it." used, reassuring his interlocutor, 'not to worry, I know everything', and that he knows 'what they are, how they are, when they are', informing that this situation 'is because of the dog', in reference to the investigated Aldama» .

"In response," the judge continues, "Rogelio informs Koldo 'when they tell me about you, the first thing I do is get in touch', with which it can be deduced that Rogelio is notifying Koldo that he is being subjected to investigation".

The person who warned, the investigated Pujalte, is a Murcia businessman who owns the Murcia judicial warehouse.

It does not seem that Koldo García knew as much as he claimed, because on those same dates the surveillance reports presented to the judge by the UCO intercepted his open voice conversations in bars and restaurants.