A popular accusation in the “Koldo case” wants Judge Ismael Moreno to open a separate piece to investigate the fate of four million masks purchased from Soluciones de Gestión, for which the ministry of José Luis Ábalos paid ten million euros, for which there are no delivery notes or receipt records, it claims.
In the document sent to the National Court, to which LA RAZÓN has had access, the Liberum Association assures that “it is not clear even with the audit” commissioned by Minister Óscar Puente, the role played by Raminatrans – the company that imposed Management Solutions for the transport of the material from the airport – in the distribution of the masks. And, it points out, although the audit attributes the execution of the same to Correos (which in December 2020 certified that it distributed 2.3 million masks), it admits that “there is no delivery note for the initial delivery” from Correos to the autonomous communities, railway or transport companies.
The prosecution considers this fact “disturbing”, but assures that “no less worrying” is what happened with the flights contracted for the transport of the masks, and recalls that the former CEO of Globalia “gave three different figures” (from 11 to 15, 20 and finally 18) on the number of flights to transport masks, whose destination was decided – according to the Transport audit – by Koldo García or the businessman Víctor de Aldama, one of the main commissioners of the alleged plot, “who negotiated planes as authorized by the minister”.
For this reason, they are requesting the declaration as witnesses, among others, of the president of Raminatrans to clarify the absence of delivery notes in the first shipment to Transport and the official who signed the certificate on behalf of Corroes, which states that the surplus of masks (1,034,163) were made available to the Ministry of Health through Ingesa.
Likewise, it wants the Ministry of Health to provide the National Court with the delivery notes for the masks made available to the ministry (another 618,535 were added to that million) from Transport.
The prosecution also wants the then general director of Air Europa, María José Hidalgo, and the airline’s commercial director to testify.
For the Liberum Association, the content of the intercepted emails, the Transport audit itself and the statements made in recent days by those investigated and witnesses from Puertos del Estado, Adif and Globalia indicate the existence of “sufficient evidence of a deliberate absence of delivery notes and delivery records to the final recipients of millions of masks, or what is the same, millions of euros paid with public money”. The accusation goes a step further and states that “the possibility of a diversion of public material for its subsequent sale on the market, thus generating huge profits, cannot be ruled out”, a possibility that – it argues – “must be investigated” given the possible existence of possible criminal acts “perhaps of greater scope and amounts” than those until now under judicial scrutiny.
In the document, the prosecution asks why neither Raminatrans nor the Ministry of Transport “have the corresponding delivery records or delivery notes” for 2,861,806 masks (from the first batch of four million) and the aforementioned logistics company could not prove through the corresponding delivery notes the delivery of 1,140,977 more masks (corresponding to the last order of five million units for Adif).
Therefore, he complains, “it is not proven whether this sanitary merchandise finally reached the workers and the rest of the staff of the Ministry of Transport, and other public companies or companies under its supervision.” The “loss of the chain of custody,” he points out, because “if the alleged commissions received by State officials or the alleged diversion of capital to third countries deserve our procedural attention, the same interest must be expected regarding the object of such transactions, that is, the final destination of the merchandise acquired with public money: the masks.” And he regrets that the statement as a witness of the former president of Puertos del Estado has not clarified “how the distribution company managed the distribution of the merchandise.” Nor did the other witnesses, he recalls, shed any light on the matter.
Liberum insists that it is necessary to investigate “whether the masks actually reached their final destination, a legitimate reason for the emergency procurement, or on the contrary, this absence of records and delivery notes to the final recipients of millions of masks was the result of poor control management or a spurious interest.”