The public company Mercados Centrales de Abastecimiento, SA (Walk) hiring Servinabar 2000 SL -the company of which he was associated Santos Cerdan and which, moreover, is linked to Leire Diez– to make a report on the rehabilitation work at its headquarters following “internal instructions”, as shown in the list of small contracts of the company to which it had access THE WORLD. Servinabar, owned by Antxon Alonso, received 18,119 euros for the technical report from the head office of this public company, 51% owned by the Société nationale de participations nationaux (Sepi).
Mercasa – a public company in the food sector – is among the five hits that investigators attribute to Leire Díez, considered Ferraz’s plumber, to the former president of Sepi Vicente Fernández and Alonso. The three men are charged in the National Court with rigging public contracts in exchange for alleged bribes. Hiring the company of which the first is associated number three of the PSOE by Mercasa took place on November 11, 2021, the date on which Leire Díez was communications director of the Empresa Nacional del Uranio SA (Enusa), public company which depends on Sepi. At the end of that year, he took the plunge Email.
According to the magistrate who instructs those already baptized Leire affairfor this Mercasa-Servinabar commercial relationship to prosper, the three respondents reached an agreement with “a series of managers of the public company (Mercasa)” and thus “deceitfully” generated the justification for the contract. This operation, along with four others suspected of corruption, allegedly contributed to the plot to inflate costs and benefit its interests.
Mercasa’s hiring of Servinabar is linked to Sepi, an organization Vicente Fernández was responsible for from June 23, 2018 to October 4, 2019. He was forced to leave hastily after being indicted in a corruption case linked to the Aznalcóllar mine in Seville, of which he was acquitted last week. Once he left the public company, he was hired at Servinabar where, according to investigations by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, continued to exert its influence on the public company even if it was no longer part of it. It was precisely during this period that the five incidents investigated by the Civil Guard took place.
Fernández is considered a man of the greatest confidence of the vice president of the government Maria Jesus Montero. “Hirurok (name of the WhatsApp group through which the three defendants communicated) carried out its activity in relation to the request for a change of headquarters of the public company Mercasa”, indicates the judge of the National Court. The magistrate also insists on “the uselessness of this contract and the misleading nature of its content”.
In its list of minor contracts for 2021, Mercasa indicates that the contract with Servinabar 2000 SL was due to “internal instructions”. The amount of the tender for the company linked to the corruption plot to carry out the technical report on the works at the Mercasa headquarters amounted to 14,975 euros, to which 3,144.75 euros in taxes had to be added. The technical report preparation service for Mercasa headquarters offices was the specific name of the contract.
Leire Díez, Vicente Fernández and Antxon Alonso – whose WhatsApp group calling itself Hirukok means “the three” in Basque – operated, according to the order of the judge of the National Court, “at least between 2021 and 2023, as well as its projection reaching several public administrations”. “In the context of their activity, it has been proven that the persons questioned had adopted security measures to guarantee the strictest discretion and confidentiality of their actions,” argued the judge. The investigation by the UCO of the Civil Guard attributes them to the construction of land taking advantage of their chair in public institutions in exchange for commissions and investments in Marbella and Jaca.
About The Author
