The former PP councilor and former government delegate in the Valencian Community, Serafín Castellano, had to sit on the dock of the National Court this Monday for the famous “fire cartel”. But the former popular president could spare himself this drink because, according to Cadena SER, he has reached an agreement with the prosecution that will also allow him to avoid prison, since the prosecution has requested a sentence of 21 years in prison.
For this, the accused will compensate the Generalitat for more than 900,000 euros, an amount that was claimed from the former councilor for having favored a businessman friend in the processes of awarding contracts for aerial works to extinguish forest fires.
Serafín Castellano was arrested in 2015 by this “cartel of fire” and was accused along with thirty other people, including businessmen, authorities or air navigation officials, which the prosecutor’s office described as “profit-making” practices aimed at “altering the normal conditions of competition in public procurement and tendering processes”, corruption through alleged bribes.
In the anti-corruption letter, collected by Europa Press, the prosecutor ultimately proposes to judge only 17 people in this case since he requests a provisional formal notice for fifteen days because there are “not sufficient reasons to have them as authors, accomplices or receivers of the case.” facts subject to accusation.
For Castellano, the Public Prosecutor requested a sentence of 21 years in prison for the crimes of falsification of a public document, continuous crime of corruption, prevarication, embezzlement and illicit association. As for the main accused, businessman Vicente Huerta, the sentence was 33 years and 6 months in prison and fines exceeding 25 million euros.
The prosecutor points out that the accused, between 1999 and at least 2018, in relation to the contractual activity of the public sector in the field of air navigation, mainly in the extinguishing of forest fires affecting the general interest, developed multiple illicit behaviors.
In fact, he explains in his writing that in addition to Castellano, other public officials such as Vicente Bosca Calafat, coordinator of the fire brigade, would have participated in the cartel; Ramon Dinares Bosque, head of the air resources unit of the Generalitat of Catalonia; and Francesc Xavier Palmés i Cosidó, head of the Contracts and Heritage Service of the General Subdirectorate of Economic Management and Contracts of the Department of the Interior of the Generalitat of Catalonia and Manuel Bosch Serch, head of the Operational Division of the General Directorate of Emergencies and Security of the Generalitat of Catalonia.
Hunting Related Gifts
It was in June 2022 that the judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón, now retired, explained that the members of the “cartel of fire” had acted inappropriately by increasing expenses in favor of the concerted people and companies; allowing contractual extensions or modifications; approving invoices or favoring certain people and entities.
Only to the former Valencian high official, and without exhausting all the gifts offered, were offered, as specified by the judge and taking into account only the magnitude of the hunting activities, gifts amounting to at least 163,736.02 euros.
Businessmen and their companies would have geographically divided the public procurement market in the sector, as well as the specific procurement procedures, even through progressive meetings in which they pre-established which companies would participate, in which areas of influence and the successive compensations and settlements.
García Castellón stressed that these alleged manipulations would have occurred not only in Spain but also in other countries, and that they would have sometimes led to the cancellation of a call for tenders, thus generating a subsequent increase in the price of the offer within the framework of the negotiated procedure without publicity.
And he clarified that, according to the reports of the General Intervention of the State Administration (IGAE), only in the Valencian Community, where the main infractions were verified, subject to the exclusive agreement of Avialsa – linked to the main investigated, Vicente Huerta Domínguez – and occasionally UTES in which other investigated persons were integrated, between 1999 and 2017 contracts were concluded for a total of 151,585,386.22 euros.
Customer network
The alleged corruption of officials and authorities involved in these contractual processes was carried out with the delivery of gifts, which would have given rise to “a systematic action aimed at generating clientelist attitudes within the administration involved in the sector.”
Specifically, according to the judge, it was proven that, within the contractual framework of the Valencian Community and Catalonia, the group of entities or companies linked to Avialsa carried out, by various means, in favour of officials or authorities, deliveries of cash or gifts such as vehicles, hunting, firearms and accessories, watches and jewellery or stays in hotel establishments.
For the president of the Central Court of Instruction number 6, the facts could constitute crimes of corruption; criminal organization; modification of prices during competitions or public contracts; falsification of documents; embezzlement of public funds; procrastination; illicit association, negotiations prohibited to public officials; and influence peddling and illegal exactions.
