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Luis Medina Abascal
Treasury agents investigated how Luis Medina emptied his bank account the day following receiving his commission for an alleged scam to the Madrid City Council in the purchase of medical supplies during the pandemic.
The complaint admitted for processing by the judge indicates that the businessmen Alberto Luceño and Luis Medina have been able to commit crimes of fraud, falsehood and money laundering.
The disappearance of money of Luis Medina’s account is included in a Treasury report, dated September 2021, to which EFE has had access this Friday.
According to the summary of the case, since the beginning of the investigation, in November 2020, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office inquired regarding the banking movements of both investigated.
In fact, he officiated a decree addressed to the Support Unit of the Tax Agency of the State Administration (AEAT) to investigate all the accounts in which they appeared as holders or authorized and also on the “Forex trading operations carried out from your accounts”.
The Prosecutor’s Office knew that, in the last days of March 2020, the accounts of Luceño and Medina respectively received just over five million dollars (regarding 4.7 million euros), in the case of the former, and almost one million dollars (regarding 920,000 euros), in two committees in the Medina case.
After paying him one of these commissions, the most important, of 749,941 dollars, Luceño tells Medina by mail: “Pa takes it out”, and he replies: “Biennn!!!”.
The commissions were paid as commercial agents of the company Leno, through which operated in malaysia for the purchase of medical supplies.
According to documentation collected in the summary, both, to justify the funds paid into their accounts, delivered to their respective banking entities several documents with lawful appearance in which, among other things, they recognized the commissions.
The resulting report from the AEAT, from September 2021, indicates how Luis Medina began to empty the money from his account immediately following the collection.
First he sent the money in dollars to another account of his, in the same entity but from a Madrid branch, which already accounts for them in euros. And later settled this second account.
Bizum and card
Thus, since April 2, 2020, he transfers 93,700 euros to a yacht sales company in the Netherlands. In the following days, he makes purchases with a card for 11,274 euros, cash withdrawals for 6,717 euros, transfers by bizum for a value of 3,538 euros and transfers to different natural and legal persons for 51.769 eurosincluding some conceptualized as “help loans” to an individual.
In May of that year, he transfers money back to his account in euros from the original one, and settles his balance at that time, of 469,733 euros, by subscribing financial assets worth 400.000 euros and new transfers to natural and legal persons for 54,903 euros, as well as new purchases with cards, bizum and ATM withdrawals. In June he repeats with 150,000 euros and does the same operations.
And throughout the following months he continues with the same behavior, each time with smaller amounts, until his account is empty. This is what the Treasury points out, which says in its report: on 9/21/2020 you have used up all your funds and have a negative balance of -8,705 euros in your account.
The Prosecutor’s Office continued to follow the trail of money, and investigated, for example, the purchase of the yacht. Likewise, following collecting the abundant information provided by the bank, he summoned as a witness the director of the branch where Medina had his account, in June 2021, among other proceedings.
empty account
“dispose of assets, doing any operation that might make an embargo difficult is a crime,” the prosecutor warned Luceño when he took his statement, exactly one year ago now.
By then, the prosecutor was already suspicious of the movements in the accounts of those under investigation in which they received the commissions.
Those suspicions may be related to what happened last week, when the head magistrate of Madrid’s Investigating Court 47 agreed to seize the assets of both businessmen at the request of the prosecution. The measure affected, in the case of Medina, a yacht for which he paid 325,515 euros and two bank bonds for a value of 400,000 euros.
However, the judge confirmed that Medina only has 247 euros in your account. So he has asked the parties, including the prosecutor, to take new initiatives to ensure that those under investigation face their financial responsibility.