In October 2018, when Pedro Sánchez had barely been in power for three months, A meeting was promoted between the then president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torresand the Minister of Transportation, José Luis Ábalos. This meeting It was created through Koldo Garcíaadvisor and man for everything of the Valencian politician, who would have asked Víctor de Aldama for 50,000 euros in “B” to give to Torres, according to the businessman.
Juan José Pérez Bravo, a person linked to the socialist formation of the Canary Islands, was the one who acted as liaison. In the email, which reveals LA RAZÓN, Bravo explained Torres’ interest; of the current delegate of the Government in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana and the president of the Cabildo de la Gomera, Casimiro Curbeloin meeting with the newly appointed Minister of Public Works. In addition, he told him that Pestana also wanted to meet with personnel from the Secretary of State for Energy.
“Hello Koldo. As I told you the other day on the phoneAnselmo Pestana, Angel Victor Torres and Casimiro Curbelo They want to meet with Jose Luis. This meeting could be held the same day they arrive in Madrid (sic),” he told him. In the email, which was titled “Quotes from Anselmo in Madrid” and which was sent to Koldo’s official account, he also asked him to close a meeting between Pestana, who at the time of the events was president of the Island Council of La Palma, and staff from the Secretary of State for the Coasts to discuss “pending issues” for La Palma.
“Without you it would be impossible to achieve”
Bravo pointed out that those interested also wanted to meet with personnel from the Secretary of State for Energy (dependent on the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge) and with Jordi Sevilla, who had just been appointed president of Red Eléctrica. “With Seville he wants present a proposal led by Anselmowhich is agreed upon by all political groups on the Island as well as by the Platform for Sustainable Energy, in which they propose modifying the energy transportation network proposed by the previous government (sic),” he wrote.
It is striking that the advisor to the then Minister of Transport was used to arrange meetings with other ministries and even with positions that they have nothing to do with the department that Ábalos directed. In this regard, he says goodbye to him, thanking him for his management of the matter. “Receive a big hug and thank you for your mediation in all this, which without you it would be impossible to achieve“, wrote.
However, it was not the only email that was exchanged with the ministerial advisor. Months earlier, on August 11, he forwarded another communication under the title “minister and designer photos” in which he attached a series of images to download. It so happens that days before, on August 6, a meeting was scheduled Torres meeting with Ábalos on the island of La Palma.
Links to the plot
The messages limit Torres’ link with those investigated in this plot, despite the current minister’s attempts to disassociate himself from it. The Civil Guard already established this connection in the early stages of the “Koldo case”, when the investigation had not even been judicialized. Thus, the Central Operational Unit (UCO) warned that the Canarian government of Torres acquired 4.7 million masks for almost 12 million euros to Management Solutions, the key company in the plot.
The agents stated that, from the documentation analyzed, it was not clear “how the conditions of the award were agreed” and they warned that the contracts could have been drawn up “to provide justifying coverage” to material deliveries made previously. To all this we must add that the Canarian Health Service confessed to the Tax Agency in 2022 that, of the 2.7 million masks they received from the first order, a total of 837,800 face masks (valued at two million euros) were “fake”. Specifically, they stated that “FFP2 masks were not considered.”
The Minister of Territorial Policy initially denied his links with Koldo and others under investigation, but as the case progressed he ended up admitting them. “Mr. García was an advisor to a ministry and, as such, we knew him as we know the Secretary of State, the Undersecretary or the Minister himself,” he alleged during his appearance in the Koldo case commission in the Senate on November 28. However, he denied pressure from Transportation. “I was never required to order the hiring of a company by any person,” he said.
However, the messages analyzed by the UCO demonstrate direct links between the then Canarian president and other members of the plot. One by Ignacio Díaz Tapia stands out, partner of Víctor de Aldama, to the former Canarian president in August 2020. In it he presented himself on behalf of the Eurofins laboratory with the aim of sell PCR tests in the middle of the pandemic. Months later, the Canarian Health Service signed three contracts with Eurofins Megalabs for the supply of this medical material for just over 5 million euros.
The “Torres report”
Aldama has specifically targeted Torres in his confessions in court. In his first statement, which took place in November of last year at the National Court, he stated that Koldo asked him for 50,000 euros in “B” to give to Torres in gratitude for contracting with the network, but he refused. “I am not the Bank of Spain“he told him.
Months later, he stated in documentation submitted to the Supreme Court that he rented several apartments in the center of Madrid in which former Minister Ábalos, Koldo García and Ángel Víctor Torres They were housed with “young ladies.” The businessman provided photographs of these rental homes and placed these meetings between November 9 and 10, 2018, that is, barely a month after Bravo sent the message revealed in this information. The former Canarian president denied Aldama and said that he was on the islands at that time.
Added to this is the confession last March of Carmen Pano, the woman who claims to have taken 90,000 euros to Ferraz, who said that Aldama traveled to the Canary Islands twice to meet with Torres with the intention of acquiring a fiscal warehouse and unloading the fuel that they intended to bring on ships from Venezuela to the Dominican Republic and, from there, to Spain.
However, the Koldo case maintains the focus on the plot’s contracts with the Canary Islands. The UCO has yet to deliver a report on the awards of the Canary Islands government that Torres presided over. He job would already be ready and on the verge of being provided to magistrate Ismael Moreno, who is investigating this part of the plot at the National Court. In parallel, in February the Supreme Court demanded another police report for the messages that Koldo García and the rest of the defendants could have exchanged with Ángel Víctor Torres “and any other accused.”