The friendship between José Luis Ábalos and the builder José “Pepe” Ruz goes back years. Both are Valencians and their relationship was so close that the owner of Levantina, Engineering and Construction (LIC) acted as an “intermediary” and “filter” with the businessmen who wanted to propose business to the former socialist Minister of Transport, as LA RAZÓN has learned.
In addition, Ruz tried to start a tax warehouse with two of the partners of the commission agent Víctor de Aldama. These are Jesús de Gregorio Llopis and Emilio Carrillo, both investigated for Gaslow’s millionaire VAT fraud in the hydrocarbon sector.
It is the connection between the piece about “bites” in public works that led to Santos Cerdán’s entry into provisional prison and the Villafuel fraud in which Aldama is also involved.
The Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard placed, within the framework of its investigations, De Gregorio and Carrillo in the orbit of the companies that gave rise to Villafuel.
It must be remembered that the Supreme Court is judging these days whether Ábalos benefited from the La Alcaidesa chalet (Cádiz), in exchange for the efforts in favor of the fuel operator license for this company linked to Claudio Rivas and the Pano (Carmen, who claims to have taken 90,000 euros in bags to Ferraz and his daughter, Leonor, Aldama’s ex-partner).
As for Ruz, he went from being unknown in the construction sector to achieving million-dollar contracts while allegedly paying illegal commissions to the “Koldo plot.” Ruz is accused in the National Court of paying the former minister and his former advisor, in exchange for receiving public works contracts.
He was the businessman who during 2021 and 2022 paid for an apartment in Chamberí (Madrid) for the scheme, where Ábalos met with prostitutes and where he also had meetings with senior government officials, such as the former president of Adif, Isabel Pardo de Vera.
Among the contracts that Levantina was awarded is that of the reform of the delegation of the Canary Islands Tax Agency after, according to the UCO, the former advisor of Ábalos and Ruz met with the then regional president and current Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres. The agents detected, in fact, transfers made by Ruz in favor of one of Aldama’s companies, Deluxe Fortune, for 77,500 euros.
The construction company also received in the Temporary Business Union (UTE), together with Acciona, a public work for the N-IV highway between Dos Hermanas and Los Palacios. This contract was approved on June 31, 2019 for a total of 4.5 million euros and, always in the opinion of the agents, Pardo de Vera would have been the intermediary.
There are three other works that, according to the Civil Guard, were awarded to the Valencian builder’s company and that could present “indications of irregularity in their processing”: an emergency railway stabilization work in Asturias; the conservation and exploitation work on the roads in the TE-02 sector of Teruel, and the work on the A-12 Camino de Santiago highway. In total, Ruz won awards worth 125 million euros.
Leopoldo Puente, the instructor of the “Koldo case” in the Supreme Court, pointed out Ruz in the order in which he imposed precautionary measures. He identified it as “a common element to the main investigators.” That is, to Ábalos, Koldo and Aldama, “having held meetings with all of them and giving news of their results to Koldo himself.”
In one of the conversations intervened by the agents in October 2020, Ruz asked Koldo to ask the then general director of Highways, Javier Herrero, also accused in the case and with whom he had also met, “for the financial approval of the modification of a work previously awarded to LIC” for 4.5 million euros. “You don’t even do it for God and we need it,” Ruz wrote. A month later, the collection of the money owed to his company would have been “unblocked.”
There are also audios intercepted by the agents where Koldo interceded with Pardo de Vera “so that some work could be awarded to LIC.” “We gave him one of 700,000, not long ago (…) He’s going to sing again,” she warned.
The builder was even part of the list of the Ministry of Transportation delegation at the meeting organized by Globalia that was going to be held in Georgia and to which the wife of the President of the Government, Begoña Gómez, was going to attend to strengthen circles in their businesses. This trip, which would also include Javier Hidalgo, former CEO of Air Europa and the last president of the UNWTO (the Georgian Zurab), was canceled due to Covid.
Ruz assured in his statement before the Supreme Court that in March 2022, eight months after Ábalos left office as minister, he asked Koldo to speak with “the Navarrese”, in reference to Santos Cerdán – former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE – because “he was the last one” who “remained to be seen.” In that conversation intervened by the UCO, Ruz warned Koldo that leaving him “out of the dance” was not “convenient for livestock farming,” in reference to the PSOE.
The builder also made monthly payments of 2,600 euros to Koldo García between November 2022 and June 2023 through a third businessman, Juan Carlos Etero, who according to investigators, “would have simulated the hiring of Koldo, whom he registered with Social Security with a payroll of 2,600 euros per month, which was later compensated by LIC” to Etero.
He explained that he saw Koldo García “about 15 times”, admitting that – as the UCO maintained – he provided him with a secure telephone for his communications, which they referred to as “coffee” or “coffee maker.”
He was also at Ábalos’ house several times, although he did not explain the reasons. The truth is that they had a great relationship and he was a regular attendee at their many meals at the La Tragantía restaurant, located in the Berlin Park area (Madrid).
Gregorio and Carrillo converge in businesses prior to Villafuel, specifically in the fuel marketer Keep It Safe, from which Rivas acquired the company in October 2020 for 4,000 euros (“a price that is actually lower than the value that would correspond to a company with such a high business volume,” said the UCO) and a month later sold it for 50,000 euros. De Gregorio and Carillo have shared businesses since at least 2006.
In May 2024, they met with Rivas and, based on the information held by the Armed Institute, they addressed “the design of business structures designed for money laundering.”
Finally, today Ábalos testifies in the Supreme Court as a defendant for the mask contracts.
“The thugs”
Jesús de Gregorio was arrested in 2015 for belonging to a criminal organization, extortion, crime of discovery, revelation of secrets and bribery.
After the meetings that Claudio Rivas held with him and Emilio Carrillo in 2024, he went to see Víctor de Aldama to comment on their content.
For the Civil Guard, these meetings “could be due to the previous phases of the creation of a new business structure, through which the alleged criminal organization investigated could be establishing a continuous line with a new network to continue committing million-dollar fraud against the Public Treasury and the laundering of illicitly obtained benefits.”
Rivas referred to De Gregorio and Carrillo as “the thugs.” There is police intelligence regarding these two men that links them to organized crime and they are related to threats crimes. They spoke through secure messaging applications “Signal”.