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The documentation was not in the administrative files of the investigated items
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This work is part of the judicial investigation on the diversion of funds for the ‘procés’
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The investigations focus on 27 entities and a total of 44 financial aid
The Barcelona Provincial Council has discovered in recent months lost and misplaced documentation of the grants investigated by the alleged illegal diversion of funds to 27 foundations and associations, some of them from around CDC, according to an internal report recently delivered to the political groups of this institution and to which EL PERIÓDICO has had access. The papers were not filed in the corresponding administrative files. This finding is part of the investigation opened by the Barcelona judge Joaquín Aguirre on alleged irregularities in 44 economic items distributed for various projects of International cooperation during the stage in which CiU heads the provincial entity. Investigators suspect that part of that public money went to finance activities of the ‘procés’.
As a result of this discovery, the council’s technicians, who act as legal experts, decided to carry out an “exhaustive” search to try to find any type of documentation and complete the open files to award the grants. The missing information has been included in the administrative folders and they have been able to prepare the expert reports. Of the 44 subsidies in the spotlight, half, 22, have been sent to the judge, according to the count carried out last December. In most cases, irregularities have been found.
The pitfalls of the coronavirus
The work of drafting the reports by the technicians of the International Relations Services Directorate of the county council, which is prosecuting the prosecution, has been altered “substantially”, according to internal communication, due to the effects of the resulting confinement of the coronavirus pandemic, “Which has hindered access to physical documentation.”
The complexity of the administrative files for the granting of the subsidies investigated, “their location, clutter in documentation, the physical difficulty of access and the limitation of the work team “, in view of the necessary knowledge of the subject and its”confidentiality“, Has had an impact on the analysis work and has caused” a certain slowness in the preparation of these reports “, as reflected in the summary dated December 22 last.
The judicial investigation investigates the granting and management of development cooperation grants from the Barcelona Provincial Council corresponding to the 2012-2015 and 2016-2019 mandates granted to various entities, companies and foundations, some of them linked to CDC, such as Catmon e Igman, related to Víctor Terradellas, an exalted official of this party and a person close to the former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont. This person is being investigated for the alleged diversion of funds to finance activities related to the independence process.
The ‘Voloh case’
The cause of the alleged fraud of subsidies of the Diputación is the prelude to the Voloh operation, for which the ‘staff’ of Puigdemont was arrested, including the businessman and former CDC official David Madí and former ERC councilor Xavier Vendrell. The investigations into the granting of the subsidies led to the court ordering the registration of the offices of the Directorate of International Relations and other offices of the county council. It was called stela operation, in which 48 people were charged, including the president of the corporation at that time, the convergent Salvador Esteve, and the deputy delegate for international relations, Joan Carles García Cañizares. All of them are pending to testify before Judge Aguirre.
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The civil Guard It specifies in a report incorporated into the judicial process that the way of acting of the different investigated entities “is very similar”, since the same irregularities are found. It is, in general, the non-presentation of the required documentation or the shortage of supporting documents, the violation of the deadlines, “the literal copy” of information extracted from the internet presented as their own and the non-performance of the proposed activities, among others. anomalies.
From Operation Stela to Voloh
Anonymous complaint
The case of the alleged fraud in the subsidies began as a result of an anonymous report in the Examining Court number 1 of El Vendrell, the same one that was investigating the ‘3% case’ on alleged commissions to the defunct CDC in exchange for services and public works and that is now being processed by the National Court. This court was inhibited in favor of those of Barcelona and the case went to Examining Court number 1 of Barcelona, whose owner is Joaquin Aguirre, that in 2016 initiated the judicial proceedings. Previously, complaints from technicians of the Provincial Council had been registered in relation to certain commands of the international relations department and their behavior.
Actions in the Maghreb and South America
The 44 subsidies investigated correspond to 27 associations, foundations and even public bodies, such as the Igualada City Council, according to the list included in the communication sent to the political groups of the Provincial Council. These items were awarded for very different purposes, from the development of action plans in the Magreb, to waste management in the region of Veraguas (Panama), Tarapacá (Chile) or Mondeño (Colombia). Among the entities investigated is Catmon e Igman, linked to Víctor Terradellas, former head of international relations at CDC.
The watsaps with Puigdemont
Investigations turned upside down on May 24, 2018. Judge Joaquín Aguirre ordered, within the Estela operation, the registration of several dependencies of the Barcelona Provincial Council and some of the entities that received supposedly irregular subsidies, at the same time that several arrests were made. The case was still being handled by the National Police (later the robed gave the investigation to the Civil Guard). On the phone of one of the accused, specifically Víctor Terradellas, watsaps crossed with the former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, are discovered, dated October 25 and 26, 2017 to obtain the support of Russia in the unilateral declaration independence (DUI).
The ‘staff’ of the expresident ‘
On the mobile phone of the man who was responsible for international relations at the CDC, investigators discover two voice audios that caused, months later, a second operation, the so-called Voloh, for alleged corruption and financing of the Puigdemont structure in Waterloo (Belgium) . The interlocutors of these two conversations, in which there is talk of a possible interference of a Russian plot in the ‘procés’, are the one who was a senior CDC official, David Madí, and the ‘ex-minister’ of ERC, Xavier Vendrell. After months of wiretapping, Judge Aguirre agreed to 31 records and 21 arrests, including Madí and Vendrell, but also the businessman Oriol Soler and Josep Lluís Alay, head of the office of former President Puigdemont.
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