The Central Operations Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard has returned to the Almería District Council. After doing so in 2021 to arrest the then Vice President, Oscar Leria, he did the same on this occasion to Aureliano García and Fernando Giménez, president and vice president respectively of the regional entity. Along with them, the mayor of Vines, Rodrigo Sanchez, was also arrested. The three, who are officials of the Popular Party, are being investigated as part of the “Mask Case”, which investigates the establishment of a network to illegally profit by awarding public contracts.
The arrests, which did not come as a surprise in Almería because it has long been suspected that new investigations could once again tighten the siege on the provincial council, once again highlight what happened during the worst months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Cases known throughout the country such as the Koldo conspiracy or that of Ayuso’s friend, Alberto González Amador, who allegedly benefited from commissions from the sale of masks, are regional ones. The Almeria Foundation also joined in the spring of that year. According to the judicial investigation that began in 2021, senior officials in the provincial council were involved in creating a network to profit by awarding public contracts.
Specifically, the then Vice President, Oscar Leria, had obtained illicit funds after concluding a contract to purchase masks on urgent grants with Azor Corporate Ibérica, an entity controlled by Kilian López, his childhood friend. According to UCO’s investigations, this contract was closed for €2 million, and the plot would have received commissions of between €200,000 and €400,000. In fact, Leria himself was surprised to find nearly €30,000 in cash in his home at the time of his arrest. His uncle and cousin were surprised to find another 120,000 euros in the trunk of a luxury Mercedes. Because of which, Leria was expelled from the Popular Party and is considered one of the main people investigated in the conspiracy.
Along with him at that time, 16 other people were arrested and investigated for bribery in a conspiracy that the First Investigative Court of Almería has been investigating since 2022. In fact, the statements of these first people involved ended last March, leaving the investigation suspended until the arrests that have now taken place of the president and vice-president of the Almería Provincial Council and the mayor of Viña – Oscar Leiria’s uncle – have come to an end.
The popular president is in the spotlight
The judicial investigation focuses not only on the purchase of masks, but also on the protective equipment and gloves that Aureliano García himself, then president of the regional council, had signed in April 2020 with Azor Corporate Ibérica, a company run by Kilian López that has links to drug trafficking, arms sales and money laundering. This contract has been a source of suspicion for the UCO from the first moment and the fact that it was signed by Aureliano García makes it the subject of investigation.
It was not in vain that García took over the position of President of the Almería Provincial Council after the resignation of Gabriel Amat, today’s mayor of Roquetas de Mar and one of the leading figures of the Popular Party of Almería. Amat has been repeatedly implicated in alleged urban corruption schemes and has never been charged. In fact, both Oscar Leria and Aureliano García were promoted to positions of responsibility in both the Regional Council and the Popular Party. What’s more, García is currently the supreme leader of the Andalusian Popular Party, and through local politics, both are believed to have always been in the shadow of Amat, who would eventually rule.
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