The European Public Prosecutor’s Office assumes the part of the investigation of the plot of Tito Berni that splashes the general of the Civil Guard Francisco Espinosa Navas. The body has assumed the competence of the proceedings relating specifically to contracts related to GAR-SI Sahela project aimed at combating instability in this region of Africa and directed by the general accused in the plot.
Legal sources report that the magistrate of Tenerife who is investigating the so-called ‘Mediator case’ has issued an order in which she delegates to the European Prosecutor’s Office to investigate if there was embezzlement of European funds. The Prosecutor’s Office had claimed this part of the case as the project referred to was funded by the European Commission and managed by the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Public Administration and Policies (FIIAPP), for which the general was in charge.
In the order, the head of the Investigating Court number 4 of Tenerife agrees make available to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office this part of the procedure whose ringleader is the former deputy of the PSOE Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo (alias ‘tito Berni’). In this way, the body will investigate whether there was embezzlement with the project and also the procedural future of the accused Civil Guard general, who is still in preventive prison.
European funds
Sources confirm that the European body becomes the competent authority to decide on the situation of unconditional prison that weighs on him and that the magistrate confirmed just a few days ago. The actions now assumed by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (and which supervised by a judge of guarantees of the National Court), also affects the businessman José Suárez Estévez, known within the plot by the nickname of ‘the Drones’.
The body responds in this way to the communication sent to it by the Tenerife court and advanced by Vozpópuli. In it, the magistrate informed the European entity that the investigation carried out in this court had revealed a possible diversion of European funds. The wiretaps carried out on the main ringleaders of the plot revealed how the accused general would have exercised his influence within the organization so that ‘el Drones’ was made with project contracts related to the GAR-SI Sahel.
Specifically, Suárez Estévez won at least three contracts for supplies of equipment in Mali, Niger and Mauritania. On the sidelines, the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies He maintains that the ‘drones’ company was awarded another project not related to GAR-SI Sahel, worth 174,000 euros.
“Preparing the terrain”
The agents also suspect that the accused general may have collected bribes from this Valencian businessman in exchange for mediating to favor the awarding of these contracts. So much so that magistrate María de los Ángeles Lorenzo-Cáceres commissioned the Asset Recovery and Management Office (ORGA) to find out if Espinosa Navas had hidden assets in six African countries. The objective here is to clarify whether the general diverted funds to the countries Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Senegal, Morocco and Cape Verde.
In addition, from the wiretaps carried out on the defendants, it can be deduced that they wanted access to European aid for the covid crisis. The summary of the case of ‘Tito Berni’ includes a specific message that the defendant Antonio Bautista Prado, alias ‘El Curilla’ sent to the mediator of the plot, Marco Antonio Navarro Tacoronte. “During the second half of the year, the economic recovery funds will arrive in the Canary Islands. From what I see, everyone gets involved if there are subsidies, and if not, no. That is why we are going to prepare proposals for when they are ready. Once the funds come out, they give little time because you have to prepare the ground“, Told him.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office
Thus, although the court of Tenerife will continue to investigate the alleged rigging of subsidies In favor of the businessmen involved in the plot, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office is now responsible for this specific part of the case. The body is of recent creation since it began to function in Spain in 2021 and its mission lies mainly in the investigation of actions within Spain suspected of having incurred in the diversion of European funds.
In this particular, the body of which the former Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Concepión Sabadell is a representative maintains several open investigations that also affect the Canary Islands. One of them was opened last year and it is investigating whether there was subsidy fraud with aid to young Canarian farmers. Specifically, the body investigates the complaints of an official who belonged to the General Directorate of Agriculture, of which this medium reported, and in which it warns that aid was granted from the line of ‘Support for the creation of companies by young farmers ‘ despite his report to the contrary.
In the same way, the European Prosecutor’s Office is investigating whether there was embezzlement with a contract for 4 million to supply masks at the worst of the pandemic. In this regard, the circumstance occurs that one of the main defendants in this matter, the former director of the Canary Islands Health Service, Conrado Domínguez Trujillohas also been dotted with the plot of the Mediator case since, according to the conversations, he would have mediated to favor businessmen in the plot.
