The AN confirms the prosecution of the former Government delegate and former PP counselor in Valencia for the 'fire cartel'

Anti-corruption demands 21 years in prison for Serafín Castellano

MADRID, 4 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Criminal Chamber of the National Court (AN) has confirmed the prosecution of Serafín Castellano, former Government delegate in the Valencian Community and former PP counselor, for what is known as the fire cartel, whom the investigating judge has proposed to try for the alleged rigging in firefighting contracts.

Thus, the magistrates have rejected an appeal by Castellano, considering that the "maneuvers" attributed to him have the "appearance" of "having served to make the alterations" in the "contracting and adjudication processes investigated."

In a car to which Europa Press has had access, the Chamber recalls that the investigating judge, when prosecuting a total of 32 people between air navigation businessmen, authorities or officials, described practices "for profit" to "alter the terms of normal competition in public contracting and adjudication processes", corrupting through alleged bribes.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has already requested 21 years in prison for the former Government delegate and Valencian 'ex-conseller' of the PP in Governance and Justice, who had appealed requesting the file or, alternatively, that a statement be taken for facts that are imputed to him but that he says that he has not been asked about them.

To this, the magistrates respond that this request is "inadmissible": "It turns out that he knows the facts with which he is charged and that the necessary diligence is unnecessary, since all these files are at his disposal, he was not interested in testifying again and opposed several times to the extension of the investigation".

In June, Judge García Castellón explained that the members of the 'fire cartel' would have acted improperly by increasing spending in favor of concerted individuals and companies; allowing contract extensions or modifications; approving billing, or favoring certain people and entities.

Only to the former high-ranking Valencian official, and without this exhausting all the gifts given, were made, according to the judge and taking into account only the field of hunting activities, gifts for an amount not less than 163,736.02 euros.

Entrepreneurs and their companies would have distributed the public contracting market in the sector geographically, as well as the specific contracting procedures, including through progressive meetings in which they pre-established which companies would attend, in which areas of influence and the successive compensations and settlements economics within the cartel itself.

García Castellón stressed that these alleged fixes would have occurred not only in Spain but also in other countries, as well as that on occasions they would have led to a tender being left void, thus generating a subsequent increase in the bidding price in the negotiated procedure without publicity.

And he specified that, according to the reports of the General Intervention of the State Administration (IGAE), only in the Valencian Community, where the main infractions have been verified, subject to the exclusive concurrence of AVIALSA -linked to the main investigated, Vicente Huerta Domínguez-- and occasionally UTES in which other investigated were integrated, between 1999 and 2017 contracts were concluded for a total of 151,585,386.22 euros.

The alleged corruption of the officials and authorities involved in these contracting processes was done with the delivery of handouts or gifts, which would have resulted in "a systematic action to generate patronage attitudes in the field of the administration involved in the sector."

Specifically, according to the judge, it has been verified that, in the contractual field of the Valencian Community and Catalonia, the group of entities or companies linked to AVIALSA carried out by various means, in favor of officials or authorities, deliveries of cash or gifts such as vehicles, hunting, firearms and accessories, watches and jewelry or stays in hotel establishments.

For the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6, the facts could constitute crimes of bribery; criminal organization; alteration of prices in contests or public contracting; documentary falsehood; embezzlement of public funds; prevarication; illicit association, prohibited negotiations with public officials; and influence peddling and illegal extortion.