Judge Leopoldo Puente, in his effort to argue the decision to send to provisional prison to Santos Cerdán, on Monday issued a neat car that summarizes the state of the investigation. The case of the Award of the Ministry of Transportation in exchange for bite has, among its conductive threads, A ACCIONA, the construction of the Ibex to which the magistrate attributes in the plot the role of corruptor.
The name of the construction company is mentioned six times in the judge's car. The magistrate says that the obtaining of contracts by the construction company of the entrecanal family, “acting in UTE with others of minor size”, represents the “eloquent common denominator” of the plot. This thread completes the fact that in cases under investigation, actua and the other companies with which he attended a UTE never presented “the best economic offer, invariably favored in the tender for criteria of subjective valuation,” writes the judge of the Supreme Court.
The awards under suspicion exceed 600 million euros and come mainly from two entities dependent on the Ministry of Transportation that Ábalos directed until 2021: the Adif rail manager and the General Directorate of Roads. The majority of that amount, 537 million (more than 80% of the total), corresponds to five awards to act. And they range from huge infrastructure, such as the burial of the rail arterial network of the city of Murcia, to others of minor size.
The crossing of the dates of the tenders under suspicion and the conversations and messages seized to Koldo García has allowed solid indications that Action would have paid 550,000 euros in bites of Ábalos and his advisor in exchange for the amaño of these contracts. In addition, according to the judge, there would be “another 450,000 euros equally committed”, which would raise the amount to “one million in total, in approximate terms.” The company has opened an internal investigation and on June 16 announced its first dismissal. Its president, José Manuel Entrecanales, said at the last shareholders' board that he felt hurt by the “reputational impact” that these revelations could have.
The “method” started in Navarra
The Civil Guard report showed, however, that the linking of Cerdán and Koldo García with Actiona would have started much earlier, in Navarra, through Fernando Merino, then responsible for the construction company in the Regional Community and in La Rioja. Merino was fired in April 2021. The magistrate alludes to the “method” that would have then opened and then exported to Madrid when Cerdán was appointed Secretary of Territorial Coordination of the PSOE, in 2017. In this “method” who pays is acting. This is explained by the judge: “The improper adjudication of certain works was proceeded, in exchange for a price, precisely in favor of acting constructions in UTE with third companies of much lower size.”
From the Navarra stage, the relationship with Servinabar 2000, a small mercantile administered by Antxon Alonso, an intimate friend of Cerdán, and with whom A. experience”.
The agents found a document dated in 2016 at the house of Antxon Alonso that gives Cerdán 45% of the property. According to the private contract of sale, signed by both, former 'number three' of the PSOE paid 6,000 euros for 1,350 participations of Servinabar 2000. Before the judge, Cerdán said that he never acquired those participations, although he had planned to do so because the PSOE was in its lowest hours and considered leaving politics. He explained that, after a conversation with his wife, he broke the contract and decided not to move forward.
The secret recordings that Koldo García made for more than four years also show the movements of those involved to reward Action. In one of them, dated April 2019, Minister and Advisor appear talking about the distribution of public works for different companies, including. Koldo García communicates to Ábalos who has spoken with the then president of Adif, Isabel Pardo de Vera, so that the contracts pending to tender two were for the company indicated by him.
Koldo García: “These five are it worth?, You have to make an action, another Sacyr, and she tells me, I have to give a ferrovial.
Ábalos: “Talk to Santos, huh.”
According to the UCO, these messages reveal that although Koldo García became organically depending on Ábalos in the Ministry, Cerdán maintained ancestry on him. So much so that, without having any charge in transport or in the Executive, he continued to receive news from the advisor on public hiring and “transferred certain indications to this for the achievement of them.” The researchers consider that the figure of Koldo “would have allowed (to Santos Cerdán) to be able to exert some influence on concrete public works awards in favor of ACCIONA, as well as in possible appointments of organic positions in the Ministry of Transportation.”
The reform of the Criminal Code of 2010 allowed the imputation of legal persons. Until now, the company has tried to download the responsibility for its person in charge in Navarra and La Rioja when the events occurred, Fernando Merino, who has been out of the company since 2021. However, five years laterthe PP sololy approved a reform that limited the effects of the law by exempting companies from that responsibility that they could have control plans before the commission of a crime.
In a shareholders meeting held last week, José Manuel Entrecanales, president of ACCIONA, said that “the facts are directly related to the conduct of a former employee of a subsidiary of the group (active construction) that was fired in 2021 for loss of confidence by his hierarchical superiors, without then having any record on possible irregular actions.”
Fernando Merino, the former manager of the accused company, will give a statement next Monday, the day in which the Single Servinabar Administrator, Antxon Alonso is also summoned. Legal sources consider that an eventual imputation of acting as a legal entity would always occur after Merino's statement.
