Madrid, December 15 (EFE). – The inspector of the Internal Affairs Department of the National Police in charge of investigating the Tándem case stated in the trial that former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo presented himself to his espionage service clients as a “private sector assassin” with contacts in the security forces.
The witness claims that between 2012 and 2014, Villarejo, through his Cenyt group of companies, collected a total of 411,400 euros paid to him by the businessman Antonio Erico Chávarri to spy on the insolvency administrator of his real estate company, the late Luis PG, and his former father-in-law and main creditor, Joaquín Molpeceres, in order to pressure them and reach an agreement in the bankruptcy proceedings.
The National Court began this Monday the trial of the part of the Tándem case known as the “Grass Project”, in which the prosecutor requests twelve years in prison for Villarejo, four and a half years for his partner at Cenyt, the lawyer Rafael Redondo, and seven years for Antonio Erico Chávarri.
The inspector who testified this Monday confirmed the prosecutor’s story, which indicates that in 2012 the bankruptcy proceedings of the real estate company Chávarri were handled, in which Molpeceres, a businessman in the sports sector, former vice-president of the Spanish Tennis Federation and former president of the Madrid Federation, was the main creditor.
The prosecutor adds in his indictment that Chávarri suspected possible irregularities in the process due to the relationships that Luis PG was able to maintain with Molpeceres, which is why he contacted Villarejo to investigate them and collect information about them.
He explains that he intended to obtain all types of personal information, including any irregular acts in which both could have intervened, and that VIllarejo and Redondo, in executing the order, obtained Luis PG’s call traffic between September 15 and October 13, 2012.
The inspector in charge of the investigation said in the trial that the aim was not so much to file a complaint as to use the data obtained to put pressure on those spied on and persuade them to give in in order to reach an agreement that would benefit Chávarri in the bankruptcy proceedings.
He has reported that, according to intercepted conversations with the defendants, Chávarri asked to look for “brown people” in which the investigators could be implicated and spoke about possible bribes in the port of Denia, the delivery of briefcases to the Miguel Ángel Hotel in Madrid and accounts in Switzerland through Molpeceres.
The police official added that in the meetings between Villarejo and Redondo with Chávarri and in the report prepared by Cenyt, it was indicated that Luis PG could receive cash from bankrupt businessmen, deposited in opaque accounts in Andorra and linked to payments to commercial judges to initiate certain bankruptcy procedures.
This new trial comes shortly after it was announced that the Appeals Chamber of the National Court acquitted Villarejo of espionage work that he was accused of carrying out for Repsol and CaixaBank with the aim of obtaining information from the former president of Sacyr Luis del Rivero, for which he was sentenced to eight years in prison.
This is his third acquittal in the proceedings before the National Court after those related to the alleged espionage of the former president of Martinsa Fadesa and Real Madrid, Fernando Martín, and to a report on the Marbella businessman Felipe Gómez Zotano in connection with a financial dispute with a woman over a real estate matter.
In addition, the Appeals Chamber of the National Court reduced the sentence imposed on Villarejo in the first three parts of the Tándem case for which he was indicted (Iron, Land and Pintor) from 19 to 13 years in prison, thereby acquitting him of the crime of forgery.
Villarejo will still have to deal with dozens of pending lawsuits on the thirty parts into which this case has been divided.EFE
About The Author
