Juan Carlos Cueto, one of the businessmen involved in the Koldo case —which investigates alleged corruption in the purchase of masks by the Ministry of Transport and other organizations, at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic— appeared this Wednesday before Judge Ismael Moreno, instructor of the National Court. Cueto, whom the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office places at the top of the plot along with Víctor de Aldama (president of Zamora CF), has responded only to the questions from his lawyer. And, according to legal sources present at the meeting, he has denied that he paid irregular commissions to obtain mask contracts from the Administration during the worst of the Covid health crisis.
According to these sources, Cueto has insisted that the price they charged for the product was fair and in line with the market, and has added that there is an audit report on the matter prepared by the consulting firm KPMG. He added that it was a very expensive operation, which included quite a few trips to China. And he has stressed that he did not pay anyone, nor did he commit any illegality. After the interrogation, the Prosecutor’s Office has requested that he be prohibited from leaving the country without authorization, a measure that the magistrate has approved and which his lawyer has not opposed. After half an hour of testimony, the businessman left the National Court, accompanied by his lawyer, Alfonso Trallero.
Beyond Koldo García, the former advisor to former Minister José Luis Ábalos who allegedly received commissions for “facilitating” the awards, Anti-Corruption and the agents of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard place the focus on Cueto and De Aldama. According to investigators, both played a key role at the top of the alleged corrupt network. The Prosecutor’s Office’s thesis is that the president of Zamora, who was already active and “enjoyed a certain prevalence” in Transportation, knew that the ministry needed to buy medical supplies. And he did not want to miss the opportunity to get rich, so he contacted Cueto, with whom he had already done business before: “Since [De Aldama] “He did not have the necessary human and material resources, as well as sufficient financing to undertake the project alone, he would have contacted the Cueto Group,” states the complaint filed by the public ministry in the National Court.
The two ringleaders then put their plan into action. They devised a “common project”, in the words of the Prosecutor’s Office, which explains that they turned to Soluciones de Gestión y Apoyo a las Empresas SL to contract with the Administration. This company was an alleged cover: none of them appeared in the organizational chart, but in practice it was managed by the Cueto Group, behind which Juan Carlos Cueto is located. However, Íñigo Rotaeche, also accused, is the one who appears as the firm’s attorney. The public ministry describes him as the businessman’s “trusted man.”
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De Aldama supposedly took care of the first contacts with García: “Aldama and Koldo García, advisor to the head of the ministry at that time, maintained a direct and personal relationship.” Both had met in Mexico, on the occasion of an official visit by Minister Ábalos to the region. With these operations concocted during the pandemic, Judge Ismael Moreno calculates that Cueto obtained a benefit of 9.6 million euros; and De Aldama, 5.5 million. Investigators have detected a notable “increase in assets” of García at that time (over 1.5 million euros), but it has not yet emerged whether it has been proven who made the payment of those alleged commissions and how he received them.
For his part, Cueto maintained this Wednesday that he did not commit any irregularity. Marta Castro, deputy legal secretary of Vox, who is appearing as a popular prosecutor, has assured that the businessman has told the judge that his actions were, “even altruistic in defense of the lives of Spaniards, and that they had little room for economic benefit.” According to Castro, Cueto “has said that, of course, his intention had not been to take advantage, but rather to help Spain, the Spanish people.”
Cueto is also an old acquaintance of the Prosecutor’s Office. He belongs to the family that manages the Cueto Group. In fact, Anticorruption maintains that he “leads” said business conglomerate, although he officially left the organizational chart following his involvement in the Defex caseun summary still pending trial and for which the public ministry is asking him for 50 years in prison. In these investigations he is also accused, precisely, of paying “illegal commissions” to Angolan authorities and officials to obtain public contracts for the supply of weapons and police material (concessions that, due to the lack of controls, they allegedly took advantage of to divert their pockets of part of the money obtained through awards).
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