The judge proposes trying the former ambassador to Venezuela Raúl Morodo, his son and his daughter-in-law for crimes of tax fraud

The family clan would have disposed of more than 4 million euros after defrauding the Treasury through instrumental companies

MADRID, 23 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The judge of the National Court Alejandro Abascal has proposed trying the former ambassador of Spain in Venezuela Raúl Morodo, his son Alejo Morodo and the latter's wife, Ana Catalina Varandas, for the alleged crimes of fraud against the Public Treasury that they would have committed between 2013 and 2017.

In the order to pass to abbreviated procedure, collected by Europa Press, the person in charge of the Central Court of Instruction Number 1 attributes to those investigated an aggravated crime against the Public Treasury. In the case of the former ambassador for the 2014 financial year, her son for the years 2013 and 2014 and her daughter-in-law for the 2013, 2014 and 2017 financial years.

This decision by the instructor comes after he agreed to create a separate piece in the so-called 'Morodo case', a movement that brought the former ambassador and his family circle closer to the bench. It was the Prosecutor's Office that requested the formation of the aforementioned piece so that it could thus continue with the procedures of the abbreviated procedure, as has finally happened.

With this, the judge intended to advance the prosecution, separately, of some criminal acts that -after being investigated within some previous proceedings- "should not wait or be delayed until the investigation is completed in relation to other criminal acts or other persons who may be the subject of separate inquiry."

In his order, issued this Monday, the magistrate explains that Alejo Morodo was engaged in the alleged provision of legal advisory services and, in order to defraud the Treasury, decided to file three companies to avoid the considerable outlay that taxation through personal income tax would entail. .

In this way, the instructor details, he paid income through corporate tax, whose tax burden was lower. Part of the profits obtained through these interposed companies were integrated into the estate of his father, Raúl Morodo, who would have hidden them from the Public Treasury.

The judge explains that, between 2007 and 2014, Alejo Morodo began "an apparent contractual relationship with PDVSA through two of its companies for the provision of legal advisory and international consulting services for which these companies, despite not stating the effective performance of these services, they entered 6,696,221 euros of which they received 3,996,000 euros in the years 2013 and 2014".

Of the income received in 2013 and 2014 - a total of 4,463,832.84 euros-- through these instrumental companies, Alejo Morodo disposed, according to the judge, for his personal and family consumption, a total of 4,105,862, 56 euro. Thus, and in order to fraudulently reduce his tax burden, he paid these amounts with the lowest tax rate offered by the corporation tax.

The magistrate details that his father, the former ambassador to Venezuela, also benefited from the income received through these instrumental companies, who received 357,970 euros and integrated them into his assets, hiding them from the Public Treasury.

However, the instructor clarifies that the investigated facts related to the fiscal years of 2011 and 2012 would be prescribed.

On the other hand, Judge Abascal agreed to file the case for Raul Morodo's wife, Cristina Cañeque, and her company MS TRADING S.L. considering that there are insufficient reasons to prove her participation in the crime against the Public Treasury under investigation.

These decisions are part of the investigation that is being carried out in the National Court, and which has its origin in the complaint that the Prosecutor's Office filed in January 2019 for alleged crimes of money laundering and crimes against the Public Treasury against Raúl Morodo, his son. and other natural and legal persons linked to both.

In that letter, the Venezuelans Carlos Adolfo Prada Gómez and Juan Carlos Márquez Cabrera (who died during the investigation) were also pointed out, and against other natural and legal persons from their family and business environment.

The initial investigations focused on the more than 4.5 million euros that Morodo and his closest circle would have received between 2011 and 2015 from the public company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) "lacking real justification and commercial logic."