The Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard has detected cash income of more than 300,000 euros in the personal and professional accounts of the lawyer José María Corbín, brother-in-law of the former mayor of Valencia, the now deceased Rita Barberá. The report, sent to the head of the court investigating the Azud case, maintains that Corbín collected commissions from companies awarded by the Valencia City Council through two formulas: one, the hiring of his office and another, with cash income in his accounts. “The research developed throughout this investigation has allowed us to gather numerous indications in this regard and which are added to those already existing. Likewise, no elements have been found to disprove this hypothesis, despite the large number of investigations carried out,” the report states.
Regarding the cash receipts detailed, the investigation maintains that, between 2005 and 2008, cash receipts worth 308,272.03 euros were made into the bank accounts of José María Corbín and that of the company that bears his name. points out that these impositions were “less” and, subsequently, a period “of practical absence” between 2009 and 2015, the year in which Barberá stopped being mayor. The report assures that these payments “would actually correspond to illicit commissions disbursed for care, various public awards or
“administrative decisions carried out by the Valencia City Council.” The income is, for the most part, round amounts that reach up to 30,000 euros. In one of the accounts in which the income occurred, of which both Corbín and the mayor’s sister, Asunción Barberá, who was also the head of the mayor’s office, were the owners, the cash income detected between October 2006 and October 2008 represent 80% of the total money in the account.
According to the analysis carried out, the money that ended up in Corbín’s accounts served, in some cases, to fatten a bank account “characterized by presenting negative balances.” From this, “recurrent payments related to education, installments of financing products or insurance contracts” were made. Money was withdrawn in cash and by check and it was also used to pay a mortgage loan for a home in Jávea (Alicante) that appears in the name of Corbín and for which works were also paid, 80,000 euros in cash, carried out in 2005 and 2006.
The UCO report also includes the analysis of the messages from the tapped phones of José María Corbín. “Most of these communications had been deleted from the different mobile terminals; although, they have been able to be recovered through the methods,” the report indicates. Among the messages appear conversations with the councilors of Barberá’s team with whom he had no reason to have any relationship. The Civil Guard points out that the investigation “evidence that, foreseeably through this family connection, José María Corbín would have had access, contact and connection in relation to matters processed by the City Council, doing so through other members of the municipal corporation.” .
lottery prizes
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The UCO report dedicates a section to the lottery prizes with which José María Corbín was awarded for an amount of 360,000 euros in 2006 and 60,000 euros in 2007. The lawyer’s daughters declared before the judge that part of the fortune they dispose of comes from those lottery prizes. The judge took a statement from the president regarding the graceful failure where they supposedly bought the tickets that brought them these benefits. He explained how the sale of ballots works and said that the number of ballots that each person acquires is variable but is usually between five and ten. “People who had more than 30 ballots believe there might have been around 10,” said the Fallero president, referring to those that Barberá’s brother-in-law had to buy to obtain a prize of 360,000 euros.
In his statement, he also pointed out that Corbín “is not a fallero” and that he did not know if he had anyone he knew in the falla but that he had never seen him there. “There is no Fallero who sells 30 ballots to the same person who is not involved in the Falla,” said the president of the group, who described it as “practically unviable.” The judge asked him regarding the possibility that winning tickets had been sold and the witness alleged that there were numerous offers to pay between 10% and 15% more of the prize amount but that they were normally people linked to banking entities. “Those who bought directly did not come, bank directors and so on came and said, hey, I have clients who might buy and so on and they give you a 10, they give you a 15, there would be 7, 8, 10 bank directors, there would be an intermediary.”
