Five of the alleged members of the “Koldo plot” who were arrested on the 20th in “operation Delorme” have police records related to more than a dozen crimes that include drug trafficking, bribery, membership or cooperation with a criminal group. and money laundering, among others.
This is stated in a procedure from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) incorporated into the summary of the “Koldo case”, in which the judge of the National Court Ismael Moreno investigates the million-dollar distribution of commissions in the awarding of masks to ministries and regional governments. In these documents, 48 hours after the arrests, the agents put in writing the result of the consultation of the Security Forces databases in relation to those investigated.
The considered “brain” of the operations woven around Management Solutions and the influence capacity of Koldo García, former advisor to Ábalos, takes the cake. The businessman Juan Carlos Cueto has five police records, all of them before the Civil Guard, for crimes of fraud against the state, regional, regional or local Public Treasury, money laundering, corruption in international commercial transactions, bribery and participation or cooperation with organizations and criminal groups.
Also the one identified as “achiever” of the “Koldo plot”, Víctor de Aldama (whose companies pocketed more than 6.5 million for the Transport and Interior awards and the Canary and Balearic governments of the now minister Ángel Víctor Torres and the president of Congress Francina Armengol, respectively), appears on that black list. In its case, for “driving a vehicle with loss of validity of the authorization due to loss of points” and in relation to a crime of manufacturing, introduction, possession or facilitation of computer programs intended to commit fraud (the latter appears in the files of the Police, and the rest, in those of the Armed Institute).
Another of the businessmen investigated, Rogelio Pujalte – who according to the Civil Guard alerted Koldo García that he was being investigated and ordered him to adopt security measures – also has a police record, as recorded in the UCO proceedings, for drug trafficking. and crime of belonging to a criminal organization.
Koldo's “corrupting capacity”
A fourth investigator who appears in these police databases is the builder Luis Alberto Escolano, partner of Aldama and one of the businessmen to whom the “obtainer” would have turned to protect his assets in Portugal, and thus deceive the Treasury ( which from the beginning put the focus on Soluciones de Gestión and the two companies of the president of Zamora CF that received commissions for supposedly participating in the management of the shipment of the masks, something that the suppliers denied to the Civil Guard). The Police have in their database a “detention required by national order” after triggering a SIGO (Integrated Operational Management System) or BDSN (automated file of the National Signals Database of the Ministry of the Interior) alert.
Finally, another of those investigated, Francisco Javier García – whom Koldo would have used to hide part of his assets – appears in the Civil Guard police file in relation to minor injuries.
The Economic Crime unit of the UCO outlines in one of its reports the characteristic features of the criminal organization, which it considers to occur in the “plot” investigated. On the one hand, he explains, “the use of corruption” and, on the other, “the abuse of legal business structures” to obtain economic benefits. “This symbiosis,” he concludes, has been observed in the investigation of the alleged plot.
In fact, the Civil Guard identifies Koldo, along with Aldama and Cueto, as “the three main actors” and highlights “their ability to make decisions” and exert influence – stating that they exhibited “hierarchy” in their respective areas. of action”–, as well as “its corrupting capacity.”
((H3:On the trail of the “superboss” in the creation of the contracts))
The investigation has highlighted what some of the accused define as a “super boss” who would have been at the top of the processing of contracts. Thus, in an intercepted telephone conversation, Piedad Losada, an employee of Víctor de Aldama, told Juan Carlos Cueto that her boss was upset with Israel Pilar, an alleged intermediary with the companies supplying medical supplies. According to him, Aldama would have told him “that Isra should not touch his balls because he has photos of him with the 'superboss',” before telling Cueto that “he already knows who the 'superboss' is in this story.” In the report of October 2 of last year in which the UCO refers to this conversation, it is noted that both “are aware of the existence of a third person that they do not want to mention on the phone, which would not be Cueto or Aldama, and that it would be related to the creation of the investigated contracts, placing itself at the highest level of decision-making. It is, in fact, one of the “significant” advances of the investigation, which now attempts to clarify the identity of that “third party known to those investigated, but whom they do not refer to by name when they mention him in their telephone conversations,” since who is assumed to have “a prominent role” in operations.
At that time, those investigated were focused on trying to avoid the Treasury investigation of Soluciones de Gestión and Aldama (two of whose companies received part of the commissions, which in their case exceeded six and a half million euros), a threat that, due to Cueto's involvement in this matter, the Civil Guard deduces that it made those investigated fear that the focus would end up focusing on the awards.
The relationship between Cueto and Aldama was not good. In fact, “the lack of interest” of the president of Zamora CF regarding that inspection led him to delegate that issue to his “secretary-advisor”, Piedad Losada, with whom Cueto was forced to discuss the issue. The concern of the strong man of the Cueto Group went, according to the Civil Guard, “beyond the fear of an inspection of Management Solutions.”