The accused of what is called fire cartelThe group of people and companies investigated for rigging public contracts for aircraft used to extinguish forest fires in Spain, admitted all the crimes to the National Court this Tuesday in exchange for a reduction in the criminal claim.
Among the accused is the former Valencian councilor of the PP Serafin Castellanoformer general secretary of the formation of this community and one of the leaders who has accumulated the most power over the years in Valencian politics.
Castellano’s sentence request is reduced from 21 years in prison to 2 years and seven months.I ratify all the writings according to the writing that we presented on September 22“, he said at the request of the prosecution. The former leader of the PP will not go to prison.
The Valencian businessman Vicente Huertaowner of Avialsa Groupalso admitted the facts and the sentence requested is three years and five months in prison.
The prosecutor’s office reported that Castellano and Huerta had recorded in the minutes the 904,407.28 euros defrauded that the Generalitat Valenciana has claimed for irregularities in firefighting contracts between the Ministry of the Interior and the company Avialsa.
Castellano was arrested for these events in 2015 while he was serving as Government Delegate in the Valencian Community. Almost 10 years later, he finally admitted the facts.
The defendants called themselves “Group 6” and for 20 years dominated public procurement of aircraft used to extinguish forest fires in Spain. They did it with the PP, the PSOE and the CIU.
The organization, made up of a group of companies from the aeronautics sector and supported by officials and politicians from various administrations and parties, managed to influence the final price of the contracts.
The operation of this group was stable and permanent over time. Through clandestine agreements, many of which were reached during the hunts in Andalusia and Castilla-La Mancha, they imposed higher prices on administrations for the use of aircraft in fires.
As? Well, with fraudulent market allocation and pre-agreed offers among them with insignificant losses. Thus, for two decades they obtained maximum prices and no alternatives in exchange for deliveries of money, gifts and payments for hunts or trips.
The investigation confirmed that contracts could be concluded for at least 151 million euros and that the land extended throughout Andalusia, the Valencian Community, Galicia, the Balearic Islands, Castilla-La Mancha and Catalonia.
Origin
This “criminal” group was founded in 2001 in the Cordoba municipality of Palma del Río. There, they agreed to jointly share the fleet of firefighting aircraft, including reserve ones, to increase the profit margin.
To do this, they created a “clandestine association” after a meeting held at the headquarters of the company FAASA. This company is the one that the PSOE of Andalusia hired in 2010 to transport José Antonio GriñánChairman of the Board of Directors between 2009 and 2013, at a party in Roquetas de Mar.
Dock of the accused.
The companies agreed to divide Spain geographically and the competitions were held in turn. Each time, it was decided which company among the companies surveyed could participate in the call for tenders and the criteria for submission through a UTE were predetermined.
The meetings also established the contribution of each company to the maintenance of the fleet and the expenses of the reserve aircraft. In addition, they established a subsequent compensation for expenses between them and for possible incidents that may arise during negotiations with the administrative staff.
This division of the company was developed at least between 1999 and 2018The investigation began in Valencia because a close collaborator of the owner of the Avialsa group, Vicente Huerta, and one of the ringleaders, Francisco Alandí, presented himself to the prosecutor’s office with a computer containing thousands of documents and photographic material that compromised the organization.
The fight against corruption followed in the footsteps of the former Valencian Minister of the Interior, Serafín Castellano (PP), and among these documents, the invoice for a Browning rifle worth 1,900 euros that the conspiracy gave him.
The amount of all the gifts that Castellano received, according to the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, amounted to “no less than 167,177.02 euros“, and includes SPA sessions with nights in exclusive hotels. To this amount must be added timely cash deliveries.
Beyond Valencia
Investigators dug deeper and discovered that the network extended far beyond Valencia and obtained public contracts throughout the country with “fraudulent techniques to increase procurement costs.” As the group was present in almost all of Spain, the case was brought before the National Court.
The cartel also agreed on salary limits to be paid to aircraft pilots, rates per flight hour and other issues related to the extinction. In the agreements on shift and rotating systems, in addition to competitions in Spain and Portugal, specific services, travel or the use of aircraft in Italy were also taken into account.
In one of the contracts won in Portugal, the investigation confirmed that the Portuguese government paid up to three times more than the real cost of the contracted service.
The accused businessmen defined for each year the total fleet of aircraft available to all partners and a strict rotation was established to opt for an increase in contracts with public administrations.
In addition, areas of influence and attribution of each company were established, so that if a call for tenders was launched in a territory in which a company had already subscribed aircraft, it would be that company which would offer the service under conditions of success, but using the aircraft of the company to which the rotation quarter was assigned at that time.
In this way, Avialsa had preference in the communities of Valencia and Catalonia; the Ridao Group in the Balearic Islands, Castile-La Mancha, Andalusia and Galicia; Mirror in the Canary Islands and Andalusia; FAASA in Castile and Leon and Andalusia, and CEGISA in Portugal.
The partners made “annual adjustments between them” by using these planes in teams and establishing the existence of two reserve planes, which would cover possible breakdowns or other incidents suffered by the joint fleet.
Thus, at the end of the year, the companies established a price per aircraft, calculated on the basis of the total invoiced to the corresponding Administration. Once the expenses were deducted, the reference amount was set to establish the compensation within the group.
When a company entered the contractual period, it had the option of buying or leasing the aircraft, if it did not own one, in which case it had to do so from another company in the group that was without a contract to compensate.
They also concluded and signed agreements to carry out the awards, in the presence only of the company to which that territory had been assigned. Even in some cases, it was decided that no one would come to propose or bid, which meant that, when a new call was made, The final price was inflated by the Administration through bait offers to obtain greater benefits.
Everyone adapted to the agreements indicated. The Valencian businessman Vicente Huerta ensured the efficiency of the distribution and increased the costs, as the Public Ministry concluded.
In Catalonia, as in the Valencian region, Huerta controlled the development of criminal activity together with those responsible in the sector.
Ramón Dinarés, head of air resources of the Generalitat of Catalonia, explained to Avialsa how it should participate in the competitions in exchange for “cash deliveries, gifts, hospitality and accommodation servicesas well as electronic, technical and computer instruments.”
