- The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office requests a sentence of three and a half years in prison for <a href="https://www.archyde.com/spains-justice-system-prosecuted-two-people-accused-of-hiding-pdvsa-funds/" title="Spain's justice system prosecuted two people accused of hiding PDVSA funds”>Raúl Morodo, who will be tried starting Monday, October 14
The former ambassador of Spain in Venezuela Raúl Morodo will be tried from Monday, October 14 in the Spanish National Court for the alleged tax fraud of the profits of almost 4.5 million euros that his son Alejo obtained from his businesses with the Venezuelan state oil company. PDVSA between 2013 and 2014.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office requests a sentence of three and a half years in prison for him and eight and a half years for his son Alejo and also for his daughter-in-law. He also demands million-dollar fines for Alejo Morodo Cañeque (3.7 million euros) and his wife Ana Catarina Varandas (3.8 million), and somewhat less for Raúl Morodo (378,700 euros).
The three will sit on the bench for having allegedly hidden from the Treasury the alleged collection of some 4.5 million euros from PDVSA by Alejo Morodo through alleged false legal advice contracts signed with the Venezuelan oil company between 2012 and 2015, when their father was no longer in charge of the embassy.
The money was allegedly laundered through a complex web of companies created by the son and other investigated people, including the former ambassador’s daughter-in-law and two Venezuelan associates; One of them, Juan Carlos Márquez, was found hanged at his home in Madrid, in what was considered a suicide, shortly after giving a statement at the National Court regarding these events.
In terms of civil liability, prosecutor Ana Cuenca also requests payment of a total of 1.3 million euros by Alejo Morodo and his wife for fraud in their personal income tax returns from 2013, 2014 and 2017, while the former ambassador He asks for 126,122 euros for the fraud he attributes to him in the 2014 financial year.
Fraudulent system
The system used by the son of the former ambassador and in which the other defendants would have participated consisted of “interposing three instrumental companies to formally invoice” the “alleged services” of legal advice and consulting that he would have provided between 2011 and 2014. In this way He avoided paying personal income tax and did so through the more beneficial Corporate Tax.
The Prosecutor’s Office, which only charges charges for the years 2013 and 2014 as the previous ones were statute-barred, maintains that Raúl Morodo also defrauded the profits he received from the assets of two of those companies.
The origin of the funds that Alejo Morodo allegedly hid from the Treasury lies in the contractual relationship that he contracted with the PDVSA company until 2014, using the relationships that his father established with “senior officials” of Venezuela during his time as ambassador during the socialist government. by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
The activity provided for PDVSA, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, brought in more than 6.6 million euros, “from which Raúl Morodo benefited in part.”
Throughout his writing, Anticorruption describes the system of collection of PDVSA funds by Alejo Morodo’s “intermediate” companies and the cross-transfers between them and his father, and also mentions the company that both created in 2007, Morodo Abogados, “lacking personal and material means, as well as commercial activity” with the “identical purpose” of filing it to “displace the tax burden.”
This company declared income of 467,832 euros between 2013 and 2014, “without knowing” the services it provided, says the prosecutor.
Other accounting and tax irregularities
During the investigation, Raúl Morodo’s wife, Cristina Cañeque, was also charged, and the Support Unit of the Tax Agency discovered “serious accounting and tax irregularities” in the company MS Trading, of which she was the owner.
However, considering that these events were not related to the case that is now being tried, the investigating judge Alejandro Abascal, at the request of the prosecutor, agreed to refer this part to the courts of Plaza de Castilla so that alleged tax crimes could be investigated. part of this company and the wife of the former ambassador.
These irregularities were detected after the Tax Agency analyzed the charges for a total amount of 9,294,710.21 euros that the Portuguese citizen (resident in Spain) Lindley Patrick Delmar, spouse of Morodo’s daughter, received between 2013 and 2015. María Morodo Cañeque, through the joint venture Lindley Group 2013.
With information from EFE
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