/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/FMTBTH7GZVDDFI765LOEJALJAA.jpg "The four episodes of the ‘Koldo case’ that affect Ábalos | Spain")
On February 5, the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard delivered a report to the judge of the National Court Ismael Moreno, instructor of the Koldo case of corruption. He was by no means the first. The agents had already been investigating for almost two years those involved in a plot that had supposedly enriched themselves irregularly by awarding public contracts worth 54 million euros for the acquisition of masks and medical supplies in 2020, at the worst moment of the pandemic. Those responsible for the police investigations wanted the magistrate to extend the authorization to maintain wiretapping of seven of those investigated, as well as the geolocation devices installed for months in the dozen vehicles they used.
There were only two weeks left before the arrests and searches would be carried out, and the 109-page police document was, in fact, a compendium of the progress up to that point of an investigation that has its epicenter in the company that won the awards. under suspicion, Management Solutions, and in three characters who gravitate in one way or another around it: the businessmen Víctor de Aldama and Juan Carlos Cueto, and Koldo García, who was an advisor to José Luis Ábalos during the time he was Minister of Development, first, and of Transport, later (2018-2021). The three have appeared before Judge Moreno accused of crimes of bribery, influence peddling, money laundering and membership in a criminal organization.
Although the three of them are the main protagonists of the Civil Guard report, along with other secondary ones – such as Koldo García’s brother and wife, also investigated -, another name appears on the pages: that of former minister Ábalos. The former leader of the PSOE appears cited thirty times in the UCO document, where it is concluded that the politician acted, together with the lobbyist they look at the PP Jacobo Pombo, as the alleged “intermediary” of the corrupt plot at specific times. The telephone conversations intercepted with his former advisor (with references to him) and the meeting that both had in a restaurant in Madrid on January 10 are the clues that appear in at least four episodes of the former minister, who due to his status as a deputy ―has rejected the demand made by his party following the outbreak of the Koldo case to leave his seat – is qualified and can only be investigated by the Supreme Court. In all of his public statements, Ábalos has flatly denied his involvement in the events investigated.
The police document highlights precisely that meeting following Christmas at the La Chalana seafood restaurant between Koldo García and Ábalos – both were photographed by the agents at the doors of the establishment – as one of the episodes that point to an alleged intermediation by the former minister to favor his former advisor The UCO highlights that, at that time, the businessmen Aldama and Cueto were concerned because the Balearic Government, to whom they had sold one of the batches of masks that had allowed them to get rich during the covid-19 health crisis, had initiated the procedure administrative to claim from Soluciones de Gestión, the company that both managed in the shadows, the return of 2.6 million euros following verifying that the quality of the medical supplies was lower than that contracted.
The agents conclude that, from the content of the intercepted conversations, Koldo García “would be carrying out his efforts so that Baleares’ claim would not prosper” and that one of the people who helped him was, supposedly, Ábalos. In these conversations, the former ministerial advisor talks regarding his “former boss”, a “favor” returned with another and a meeting that he was going to have with a person on January 10 to address, precisely, how to paralyze the Government’s claim. Balearic Islands, which had then ceased to be led by the socialist Francina Armengol and had become led by the popular Marga Prohens.
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The surveillance to which Koldo García had been subjected for months before by the Civil Guard made it possible to confirm that, among the people he met that day, was Ábalos. He did it at the seafood restaurant “between approximately 9:15 p.m. and 10:20 p.m..” Although the agents were not able to capture what they talked regarding – it was held “in a reserved part” of the establishment -, the UCO highlights in its report that this meeting “is of special interest for the facts investigated”, considering it an alleged indication of the alleged role of “intermediary” that the agents attribute to Ábalos.
The researchers also give relevance in this report to several conversations of the former ministerial advisor that, in their opinion, reveal Koldo’s alleged “capacity for influence.” [García] on people with positions of responsibility in Public Administrations” to obtain positions for close people. Always according to the conclusions of the Civil Guard based on the conversations intercepted with the former ministerial advisor, the former minister allegedly played a key role in this “influence.”
The police document includes three other episodes of this alleged influence peddling in which Ábalos’s name appears. One is the one that affects the inspector of the National Police Rubén Eladio López, who had achieved some media relevance due to his role in the case of Little Nicholas and that he had been appointed by the politician as director of the Emergencies, Security and Crisis Unit of the Ministry of Transport. When he left the Government of Pedro Sánchez, the agent allegedly feared losing his job and having to return to the Police. The Civil Guard report indicates the existence of three conversations between Koldo García and the police officer’s wife in this regard.
In one of them, from December 31, the former advisor reassures his interlocutor: “They are going to consolidate what he has asked for and such, don’t worry, everything is already done. By the time he comes, everything will be done as always (laughs).” On January 9, the two speak once more. On this occasion, the former advisor assures him that the next day – when he meets Ábalos at the seafood restaurant – he has arranged to meet “José” and another senior official in the ministry, and that they will settle the matter “this month or the first week.” of the following month.” The Civil Guard highlights in the report that finally the presence of this second person was not detected in the restaurant, but that of the former minister was detected, which is why it concludes that “among other matters, they would have discussed the consolidation of the position” of the police officer in the restaurant. ministry.
The UCO believes it has detected a second episode of influence peddling in the three conversations held on December 29 with an unidentified person who worked at Enajenacion de Materiales Ferroviarios SA (Emfesa, dependent on the Ministry of Transport, in which it had also obtained a (the brother of the former advisor, Joseba García). In the dialogue, Koldo García appears confident that his interlocutor will maintain his position with the new ministerial officials – “come on, I mean, it would be absurd for José to speak well of you, for me to speak well of you, I don’t know, it’s just that… .”― thanks, precisely, to the fact that both he and supposedly Ábalos had endorsed its continuity.
The conversation held by Koldo García the day before, on December 28, with a woman that the agents identify as responsible for the CC OO union, is interpreted along the same lines. In it, the former advisor assures his interlocutor that “Ábalos” is going to contact a “personal friend” of his named “Pedro” to provide him with the woman’s telephone number so that he can call him. “As a conclusion to this conversation, it can be concluded that Koldo [García] “He continues to have influence to, through Ábalos, obtain audiences at the political level,” highlights the Civil Guard report that affects the former minister. On February 16, only 11 days following the document reflecting the four episodes that supposedly implicated Ábalos, the UCO delivered another report to Judge Moreno. In this case, to exploit the investigation and proceed to enter and search the homes of those allegedly involved in the Koldo case, company headquarters and industrial warehouses. In the document, 73 pages long, the name of the former minister only appears four times and never as the protagonist.
A roadblock and three documents
On December 4 of last year, the Civil Guard sent a 28-page report to the National Court, which included what the researchers called “chronology of events of special relevance.” The police document included various meetings of former advisor Koldo García with various people, but also the result of the police operation deployed by the armed institute to discreetly intercept documentation supposedly related to the suspicious awards that he kept at his home in Polop (Alicante). ) and that he was going to send former minister José Luis Ábalos to his home in Valencia. The suspicion that these papers might be important for the investigation led the UCO to set up on November 4, with the help of another unit of the Civil Guard, a seemingly routine roadblock to intercept the van in which Joseba García, brother of the former advisor, took them without raising suspicions. The report details that, following intercepting the vehicle, the agents found in the passenger seat “a white folio-sized envelope inside which there are 3 documents.” According to the UCO, two of them, including the audit report that the Court of Auditors prepared in 2022 on Covid-19 contracts, were publicly accessible to anyone. The third was a response from the Ministry of Transportation to a request for information that the lawyer Ramiro Grau – who published several articles accusing the former minister of corruption over mask contracts – had made through the Transparency Council. Despite this, the Civil Guard pointed out that it was “remarkable” that the shipment referred to documents related to Management Solutions, the epicenter of the plot, when Ábalos, during his time as minister, had awarded “10,757 public contracts.” Ábalos has explained in recent days that he needed those documents for the lawsuit that he had filed once morest this lawyer in the Plaza de Castilla courts for those texts.
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