The former president of the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI) Vicente Fernández, the “PSOE plumber” Leire Díez and Santos Cerdán’s partner in Servinabar Antxon Alonso – investigated in the National Court for an alleged plot to fix public contracts – shared a chat in the ultra-secure messaging application Threema, as highlighted by the analysis of the devices seized in the operation that led to the arrest of the man from trust of the Vice President of the Government María Jesús Montero and Leire Díez last December.
As LA RAZÓN has learned, the three investigated for membership in a criminal organization, prevarication, embezzlement and influence peddling for the alleged irregular award of five contracts worth 132 million euros not only shared a WhatsApp group to exchange messages, “Hirurok” (“us three” in Basque), but also resorted to the Swiss messaging application, which boasts of offering the greatest security to its users.
Although the investigation led by National Court judge Santiago Pedraz remains secret, everything indicates that this measure – which was recently extended for another month – will be lifted on April 7.
The Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, which a few days ago began to examine the devices seized from those investigated – around 15 together with more than a dozen companies – must now be extremely zealous in expunging by court order that abundant digital content of private data of the accused, as “Eldiario.es” has advanced. Something common in this type of procedure in which, as in this one, agents seize numerous devices that inevitably include files and messages of a strictly personal nature.
The precedent of the Pujol family
This is what happened, without going any further, in the investigation of the Pujol Ferrusola family for the origin of their family fortune hidden in Andorra for decades. In this case, the expurgation of the devices of Jordi Pujol and his children, already in the final stretch of the investigation, was delayed for more than two years due to the recurring complaints of his lawyer regarding the technical difficulties in accessing the summary to identify personal files.
As these files are identified, they will be incorporated into a secret piece, the sources consulted point out, to which the parties involved in the procedure will not have access.
Thus, sources in the investigation assume that it will be impossible that when the secrecy of the proceedings is lifted – which includes not only the complaint from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office that triggered the opening of proceedings, but also a voluminous report from the UCO of more than a hundred pages that precipitated the police operation – the Civil Guard will have already sent the instructor its report with the analysis of the content of the seized devices. And, according to the police unit, Vicente Fernández deleted all his messages before being arrested.
Forestalia, also in the focus
Among the five operations investigated – the majority linked to the SEPI or the Sepides Group (State Society for Industrial Promotion and Business Development), except for one from Mercasa and another from Enusa – is the one that affects the financing of 17.3 million euros of Arapellet SL, 100% owned by Forestalia, the Aragonese renewable energy company that would have benefited from Eugenio Domínguez, the former deputy director general of Environmental Assessment of the Ministry of Transition Ecological, which was then directed by Teresa Ribera.
In the awarding of this project by Sepides – which consisted of the expansion of the company’s facilities and the start-up of a new plant – the alleged agreed commission was 200,000 euros, as highlighted by the UCO investigation.
In fact, the Civil Guard points out in its key report to three companies with “direct” links to Forestalia, which determines that among the people in the focus of the investigation are – according to the sources consulted – both the owner of the renewable energy company, Fernando Samper, and the brothers Eduardo and Roberto Pérez Águeda, both accused in the “Forestalia case” as alleged executors of the payments for the rigging.
The lifting of the secrecy of the investigation, foreseeably on April 7 – coinciding, procedural whims, with the beginning of the trial of José Luis Ábalos in the Supreme Court – will precipitate that those investigated who have not yet appeared in the National Court – all except the former president of the SEPI, Leire Díez and the businessman Antxon Alonso – will be summoned to testify before the investigating judge. Appearances that, at the expense of the tight calendar of the Investigating Court number 5 of the National Court, would take place throughout the months of May and June.