Ferraz’s “plumber” and former socialist councilor, Leire Díez, took advantage of his leadership position at Correos to give a “special” contract (without advertising or free competition) worth 180,138.75 euros at the Seville office SDEP & Carrillo Abogados SLP., investigated by … participate in a corruption conspiracy whose epicenter is the State Company of Industrial Participations (SEPI). The purpose contained in the award agreement, to which ABC subscribed, and which was approved on December 5, 2022, consisted of the provision of “a consultancy and technical assistance service to the Directorate of International Relations, Philately, Studies and Future», position she held within the public postal group belonging to SEPI between February 2022 and the same month of 2024.
Two lawyers linked to this firm (currently called SDP Estudio Legal), Juan Antonio Carrillo Donaire and Laura Babío De Pablos, are under investigation for participation in the alleged scheme of illegal commissions through rigging of aid and public contracts for an amount of at least 132.9 million euros. Its alleged leaders are former SEPI president Vicente Fernández Guerrero; Joseba Antxón Alonsothe partner of the former PSOE organizational secretary Santos Cerdán in the company Servinabar 2000 SL, and Díez herself.
The current headquarters of the aforementioned law firm is on the street Cardinal Bueno Monreal of Seville like the office opened in February 2024 in Madrid – which he was able to share with Vicente Fernández – They were recorded last Thursday by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard to collect documents on suspicious contracts and subsidies. The police searches were extended to around twenty Post offices, to SEPI itself and to companies belonging to the state holding company, as well as to various organizations dependent on the Ministries of Finance and Ecological Transition and demographic challenge.
In the Correos document on the start-up and contract award agreement, the address occupied Leire Díez appears as promoter of the contract valid for one year and which was processed through the purchasing sub-directorate of the state company Correos y Telégrafos SA. Only one offer was presented, that of the aforementioned office, because a so-called “special” procedure was chosen. an exceptional formula included in the postal group’s internal contractual rules which allowed it to dispense with the publication and competitive bidding requirements required by an open competition.
A contract without advertising or competition
According to the internal instructions in force in 2022, to use this extraordinary route, the so-called “plumber” of the PSOE had to present a supporting report to justify that there were “technical or strategic circumstances” which prevented requests for tenders to several offices, essential in an ordinary process. There was interest in signing from the aforementioned Seville office.
In its investigations to try to find out through which channels the conspiracy used to collect commissions in five suspicious operations, the UCO found two invoices that compromise the members of the company SDP Carrillo y Montes SLP (renamed SDP Estudio Legal) and about which the agents questioned the person investigated during their interrogation. Juan Antonio Carrillo Donaire, professor of administrative law at the University of Seville and elective councilor of the Andalusian Consultative Council. It’s a payment of 17,545 euros to the aforementioned law firm produced by the public company Enusa, for which Leire Díez was responsible for communications before arriving in Correos. The UCO believes that this payment was made without any workers’ compensation.
Carrillo Donaire, who left the firm a year ago, and the firm’s current partner, Laura Babío, asserted their right not to testify before the judicial police.
Leire Díez’s rise in public enterprise
Leire Díez landed at Correos in November 2021 when he was president of the postal company Juan Manuel Serrano, chief of staff of Pedro Sánchez before his arrival at Moncloa. He first appointed her head of the institutional relations area of the Deputy Secretary General and the State Group Council. Four months later, he promoted her to director. had been deputy to the socialist mayor of the Cantabrian municipality of Vega de Pas.
With Sánchez as president of the government, which she supported in the 2017 primaries, Leire Díez became head of communications for the state-owned uranium company, Enusa. After his departure from Correos in 2024, he began promising procedural favors to prosecutors, businessmen and other professionals in exchange for information in exchange for commanders of the UCO and the anti-corruption prosecutor’s officeefforts to research alleged malfeasance for which the judge is under investigation Arturo Zamarriego.
Judge Antonio Piña believes that the alleged corruption plot benefited from the collaboration of “different public officials”
Leire Díez formed, with the former president of SEPI and the owner of Servinabar, the trio who pulled the strings of this plot. They composed the self-proclaimed group “Hirurok” (“the three of us” in Basque), an alleged criminal organization that was beheaded during its arrest by the UCO as part of a macro-operation deployed last week under the supervision of the President of the Central Investigation Court 6 of the National Court, Antonio Piñaafter a complaint filed by the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office. The judge considers that they had the collaboration of “different public positions» with decision-making power over contracts and public aid with which they were able to obtain bribes between 2021 and 2023.
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