The former deputy director general of Environmental Assessment in the Ministry of Ecological Transition headed by Teresa Ribera, Eugenio Domínguez, created a complex corporate network together with his family to hide his participation in Forestalia wind farm projects in Aragon. This is stated in the summary of the case, to which LA RAZÓN has had access, and where up to three levels of companies appear to be part of the awards that the company won.
The Civil Guard grants a key role to Domínguez. His reports describe how he assigned Forestalia’s files to himself to approve environmental assessments while, on the other hand, the company participated in his family companies. That was the way, presumably, to send him payments in exchange for his services.
Researchers have located three levels of concealment. First, the family acquired stakes in Caliope Energy Green and Caliope Smart Energy, which in turn participated in Babieca Investment Renewable. The latter was part of the Forestalia Group’s energy projects, the same ones that Domínguez favored in a supposedly irregular manner. In the end, his companies revalued, generating profits for the former high-ranking government official.
In addition, his wife and children formed Estudio de Asesoramiento Dherco SL in July 2023, which researchers maintain is “an ad hoc structure for the receipt of illicit payments.” This company presented itself “as a technical consultancy to carry out complex renewable energy projects”, but in reality its corporate purpose “focuses on the design and decoration of homes and commercial premises.” The Civil Guard points out that “it is technically and logically unsustainable” for a company of this type to be dedicated to the world of renewables “unless its real function is to serve as a screen to channel payments linked to Domínguez’s public office.”
19 witnesses
The judge in the “Forestalia case” establishes his conviction that the senior official of the Ministry of Ecological Transition is the “central figure” of the alleged criminal plot that would have favored the renewable energy project company in 19 witness testimonies. Among them, 14 “especially relevant” testimonials from people who “currently work or have worked” in the General Subdirectorate of Environmental Assessment. And, also, the testimonies of three workers from Tragsatec, the public company to which the suspicious files were referred for evaluation, and two other employees from Inaga, the Aragonese Institute of Environmental Management.
There are “multiple”, he says in one of the resolutions incorporated into the summary, the statements that point to him “as the person responsible for assigning to himself practically all of the renewable energy projects presented by promoters belonging to the Forestalia Group”, a practice that they describe as “extraordinary.”
For the investigating judge, Juan José Cortés, one of the most relevant statements from workers in the general subdirectorate that Domínguez directed is that of Elena PB, who assured that Domínguez “regularly went to the Forestalia company in the afternoons at the end of his working hours”, a detail that according to the magistrate highlights “an unusually close relationship.”
According to his testimony and that of Álvaro CL, after his retirement “he continued his activity as an advisor to the Secretary of State for the Environment”, presumably to continue facilitating the processing of said projects.
The judge also values the statements of Juan Carlos PH and Susana BA to the extent that both described “a recurring practice” regarding “the receipt of documentation related to the Forestalia Group projects directly, through USB drives personally delivered” to Ribera’s senior position in the ministry.
A practice that, he warns, “represented a deliberate break in the administrative chain of custody” since this documentation was incorporated into the management platform “without going through the official registry” of Ecological Transition, thus preventing, as another of the witnesses, Juan Carlos PH, pointed out, “the formal traceability of its entry and evading a fundamental control.” Not in vain, it was “the first step to take control of the file outside of regulatory channels.”
In the case being conducted in Aragon there are, at the moment, six people and 14 companies investigated for crimes of integration into a criminal organization, prevarication, bribery and money laundering.